'LIBRARY* 

UNIVCMStTY  Of 
CAUFOftM* 
SAM  MHPO 


PROCEEDINGS      O¥     THE      BUFFALO 
CONFERENCE    FOR    GOOD     CITY 
GOVERNMENT    AND    THE    SIXTEENTH 
ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  THE  NATIONAL 
MUNICIPAL   LEAGUE 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF,  EDITOR 


NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE 
1910 


PREFACE 

The  Buffalo  meeting  of  the  National  Municipal  League  has 
passed  into  history  as  the  most  largely  attended  in  point  of  dele- 
gates, as  the  most  inspiring  and  as  the  most  successful  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  papers  and  contributions.  There  was  more  live, 
vigorous,  useful,  virile  discussion  by  experienced  workers  and 
experts  than  at  any  preceding  meeting.  At  a  number  of  the 
sessions  there  was  standing  room  only.  The  three  "  round  table  " 
luncheons  were  important  features.  By  actual  count  there  were 
175  present  at  the  last  one,  when  the  subject  under  considera- 
tion was  the  commission  government  of  cities.  This  was  most 
remarkable,  coming  as  it  did  at  the  end  of  three  strenuous  days 
of  unremitting  attention  to  the  work  of  the  meetings. 

These  informal  luncheons  have  come  to  be  an  established  and 
most  interesting  feature  of  the  conferences,  bringing  together 
as  they  do  the  active  workers  for  an  interchange  of  opinions  and 
experiences.  It  has  not  been  possible  to  report  all  the  talks  in 
their  entirety,  but  the  gist  of  arguments  and  statements  of  a  per- 
manent character  have  been  preserved.  A  considerable  propor- 
tion of  the  valuable  consideration  of  the  commisson  form  of  city 
government  has  been  reserved  for  a  separate  volume  on  the  sub- 
ject that  the  League  has  in  immediate  contemplation. 

In  this  connection  it  seems  appropriate  to  state  that  the  de- 
mand for  back  volumes  of  the  Proceedings  now  out  of  print  and 
for  single  volumes  on  special  subjects,  such  as  accounting,  school 
extension,  charter  and  electoral  reforms,  franchises,  commission 
government,  the  initiative,  referendum  and  recall,  has  made  it 
necessary  for  the  League  to  provide  for  a  more  extensive  pub- 
lishing arrangement,  the  details  of  which  are  being  worked  out 
and  will  be  shortly  announced  to  the  members.  In  this  way  it  is 
hoped  that  the  educational  influences  of  the  League  will  be  greatly 
enhanced. 

School  extension  formed  an  important  feature  of  the  Buffalo- 
meeting.  A  comprehensive  report  was  presented  and  appears  in 

(iii) 


iv  PREFACE 

this  volume  of  Proceedings.  The  sundry  papers  upon  which  it  is 
based,  prepared  by  a  distinguished  group  of  publicists  and  edu- 
cators, will  form  the  basis  of  one  of  the  volumes  of  the  contem- 
plated National  Municipal  League  Series  to  be  issued  by  a  leading 
publishing  house. 

A  formal  organization  of  the  men  devoting  their  lives  to  civic 
work  was  effected  through  a  "  Civic  Secretaries  Committee." 
This  represents  an  interesting  and  suggestive  development,  preg- 
nant with  great  possibilities  of  future  usefulness. 

In  the  opinion  of  those  in  attendance,  the  Buffalo  meeting 
represented  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  of  still  more  important 
constructive  work  for  the  League.  As  has  been  the  case  for 
years  past,  tne  note  of  pessimism  and  hopelessness  was  lack- 
ing. The  papers,  addresses  and  informal  speeches  all  were  sur- 
charged with  earnestness,  breadth,  grasp  of  fundamentals  and 
hopefulness  because  of  confidence  in  the  growing  interest  of  the 
American  citizen  in  municipal  questions,  and  his  rapidly-develop- 
ing devotion  to  the  new  municipal  idea. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PATRIOTISM  IN  MUNICIPAL  AFFAIRS Charles  J.  Bonaparte.      3 

CONSERVATION  IN  MUNICIPALITIES William  Dudley  Foulke.     12 

THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff.    22 

THE   SLIDING   SCALE   METHOD  OF   REGULATING   PUBLIC   SERVICE   COR- 
PORATIONS   Edgar  N.  Wrightington.  103 

Is  A  RATIONAL  BASIS  POSSIBLE  FOR  TELEPHONE  RATES  ? 

Dugald  C.  Jackson.  109 

THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT Paul  Leake.  120 

THE  MINNEAPOLIS  GAS  SETTLEMENT Stiles  P.  Jones.  142 

KANSAS  CITY  FRANCHISE  FIGHT James  W.  S.  Peters.  156 

ELEMENTS  OF  A  CONSERVATIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

Dr.  Del  os  F.  Wile  ox.  170 

THE  GRAFTER  AT  WORK  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES Harold  J.  Howland.  190 

THE  CORRELATION  OF  FINANCIAL  AND  PHYSICAL  STATISTICS  OF  CITIES 

Dr.  William  F.  Willoughby.  203 

BUDGETS  AND  BALANCE  SHEETS Harvey  S.  Chase.  214 

THE    STANDARDIZING   OF    MUNICIPAL    ACCOUNTS    AND    STATISTICS    IN 

MASSACHUSETTS  Charles  F.  Gettemy.  230 

A  COMPARISON  OF  COMMISSION  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENTS  TO  DATE 

Ernest  S.  Bradford.  246 

POLICE  ADMINISTRATION  Dr.  Leonhard  Felix  Fuld.  281 

AN  (EFFECTIVE  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  IN  CITIES Elliot  H.  Goodwin.  304 

THE  OPERATION  OF  WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  AND  ITS  LOCAL  EFFECT 

Miss  Mary  Wins  or.  317 

PRESENT  STATUS  OF  DIRECT  NOMINATIONS Louis  M.  Greeley.  328 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  WIELDY  DISTRICTS Richard  S.  Childs.  340 

THE  UNEARNED  INCREMENT  IN  MUNICIPALITIES John  Martin.  346 

SCHOOL  EXTENSION  REPORT Edward  J.   Ward.  353 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  FOREIGNERS  IN  AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 

Miss  Grace  Abbott.  375 

THE  LIBRARY  AS  A  Civic  FACTOR Samuel  H.  Ranck.  385 

THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO Augustus  Raymond  Hatton.  395 

(v) 


vi  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PACK 

SOME  POLITICAL  PHASES  OF  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

Prof.  F.  D.  Bramhall.  423 

PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH   NATIONAL  CONFERENCE  FOR   GOOD 
CITY  GOVERNMENT  439 

MEETING  OF  THE  Civic  EXECUTIVES 516 

NOMINATION  REFORM  DISCUSSION   533 

NOMINATION  REFORM  LUNCHEON  533 

POLICE  PROBLEM  LUNCHEON  545 

GOVERNMENT  BY  COMMISSION  LUNCHEON  555 

DINNER    568 

LIST  OF  OFFICERS  AND  COMMITTEES  570 

DRAFT  OF  A  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  FOR  CITIES Elliot  H.  Goodwin.  577 

INDEX   581 


PAPERS    READ    BEFORE    THE    SIXTEENTH 

ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  THE  NATIONAL 

MUNICIPAL    LEAGUE 

AND  THE 

EIGHTEENTH  NATIONAL  CONFERENCE 
FOR    GOOD    CITY    GOVERNMENT, 

HELD  AT 

BUFFALO,  NEW  YORK, 
NOVEMBER  14,  15,  16,  17,  1910. 


Patriotism  in  Municipal  Affairs. 

By  HON.  CHARLES  J.  BONAPARTE, 
President  of  the  National  Municipal  League. 

At  our  last  annual  meeting  a  very  interesting  paper  was  read 
by  Miss  Grace  Abbott,  of  Chicago,  on :  "  The  Immigrant  and 
Municipal  Politics",  and  a  passage  in  this  paper  suggested  to 
my  mind  what  seemed  to  me  a  suitable  subject  for  this,  my  last, 
annual  address  as  your  president.  Speaking  of  immigrants 
from  southern  and  eastern  Europe,  Miss  Abbott  said: 

"  Most  of  them  are  people  in  whom  emotional  patriotism  is 
very  strong.  Fourth  of  July  is  more  uproariously  celebrated  on 
Halsted  Street  than  in  other  parts  of  Chicago.  Every  Sunday 
the  American  and  Italian  flags  precede  the  band  that  plays  the 
funeral  march  of  some  Italian,  and  the  Greek  church  for  great 
religious  festivals  is  decorated  on  one  side  with  the  American, 
on  the  other  with  the  Greek  flag.  There  have  been  several  elec- 
tion scandals  in  recent  years  in  Chicago's  Ghetto,  and  yet  the 
Russian  Jews  who  live  there  are  giving  their  evenings  to  acad- 
emic discussions  of  the  fundamental  concepts  of  liberty  and 
lamenting  American  indifference  to  governmental  questions.  Un- 
doubtedly here,  as  in  the  so-called  better  districts  of  our  cities, 
a  great  deal  of  moral  steam  is  going  to  waste." 

Need  there  be  this  waste  ?  Can  we  not  use  the  "  moral  steam  ", 
which  now  blows  itself  off  in  singing  "  America "  or  cheering 
"  Old  Glory  ",  to  turn  the  wheels  of  our  municipal  administra- 
tions and  grind  out  as  products  the  fruits  of  good  city  govern- 
ment? In  less  figurative  language,  may  we  not  make  of  patriot- 
ism a  most  helpful  ally  in  our  fight  for  pure  politics,  for  honesty 
and  decency  among  public  men,  in  the  affairs  of  our  great  Ameri- 
can municipalities? 

In  my  childhood  I  witnessed  the  profoundly  impressive  spec- 
tacle of  the  American  people  awakening  to  the  need  and  to  the 
duty  of  saving  by  the  sword  our  threatened  national  life;  twelve 

(3) 


4  PATRIOTISM  IN  MUNICIPAL  AFFAIRS 

years  ago  we  again  saw  our  country  respond  promptly  and  cheer- 
fully to  another  call  to  arms,  although,  certainly  to  many,  I  think 
to  a  large  majority,  of  our  citizens  the  need  for  war  seemed 
doubtful  and  the  merits  of  our  quarrel  open  to  dispute.  With 
this  experience,  no  one  can  reasonably  deny  that  patriotism  has 
been  and  is  to-day  a  living  force  among  Americans ;  why  is  this 
force  apparently  so  weak  in  the  works  of  peace  while  it  is  so 
strong  in  the  works  of  war?  Why  do  thousands  of  men,  of 
whom  every  one  would  hasten  to  enlist  should  the  need  arise  for 
soldiers,  shirk  or  betray  their  duties  as  citizens,  go  a-fishing  on 
election  day,  or  vote  for  the  boss's  candidate  with  no  better  reason 
to  give  their  consciences  or  their  country  than  was  given  by  one 
of  the  worst  of  our  politicians  when  he  said :  "  I  am  a  Demo- 
crat "  ? 

In  my  opinion,  this  is  partly  because  some  of  us  misconceive 
the  nature  of  patriotism  and  therefore  under-rate  its  conse- 
quence and  possible  influence  for  good;  partly  because  many 
more  of  us  fail  to  see  the  necessary  and  intimate  connection  be- 
tween the  character  of  our  government  in  all  its  branches, 

national,  state  and  municipal,  and  the  continued 
Emotional  vitality  of  our  patriotism.  To  my  mind,  a  trace, 

although  a  trace  only,  of  the  confusion  of  ideas 
existing  as  to  what  patriotism  means,  is  found  in  Miss  Abbott's 
description  of  our  immigrant's  patriotism  as  "  emotional " ;  this 
adjective,  whether  so  intended  or  not,  will  seem  to  some  peo- 
ple as  depreciatory;  the  Italians  and  Greeks  and  Russian  Jews, 
to  whom  she  refers,  would  furnish,  so  such  people  think,  more 
promising  raw  material  for  good  citizens  were  their  patriotism 
of  a  different  type.  But  surely,  "  unemotional  patriotism  "  would 
be  a  contradiction  in  terms;  one  might  as  reasonably  speak  of 
"  unemotional "  love  or  hatred,  friendship  or  enmity ;  all  these 
things  are  or,  at  least,  imply  "  emotions  " ;  if  the  emotion  isn't 
there,  the  thing  itself  isn't  there.  No  doubt  merely  emotional 
manifestations  of  patriotism,  even  when  sincere  and  spontaneous, 
are  of  a  minor  merit  and  minor  utility ;  a  good  mother  has  more 
important  duties  to  fulfil  towards  her  children  than  to  kiss  them. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  will  kiss  them  if  she  loves  them  with 
her  whole  heart ;  and,  unless  she  loves  them  with  her  whole  heart, 


CHARLES  J.  BONAPARTE  5 

she  will  not  make  them  a  really  good  mother.  So  there  is  no 
need  and  little  use  for  us  to  indulge  in  mild  hysterics  over  our 
country's  flag;  but  unless,  in  very  truth,  our  country's  flag  really 
is  for  us  something  more  than  a  piece  of  parti-colored  bunting, 
we  have  not  that  within  us  which  would  make  us  really  patriots. 

I  have  long  thought  that  reformers  of  our  politics  and  especi- 
ally of  our  municipal  politics  are  prone  to  err  in  appealing  mainly, 
if  not  exclusively,  to  the  supposed  self-interest  of  voters  to  ob- 
tain their  services  in  the  cause  of  reform.  They  promise  us  as 
citizens  better  streets  and  better  schools  and  better  water,  more 
sanitary  surroundings  and  more  effective  protection  against  crime 
and  fire,  lower  taxes  and  a  less  corporate  debt,  if  we  only  will 
sacrifice  our  ease  and  our  time  and  our  private  business  and 
incur  enmity  and  abuse  and  individual  loss  in  contending  against 
evil  influences  and  evil  men;  and  they  are  surprised  and  disap- 
pointed to  find  too  many  of  us  insensible  to  these  arguments. 

When  I  was  an  overseer  of  Harvard,  I  was  much  impressed 

by  a  remark  made  once  in  debate  by  President  Eliot  to  the  effect, 

in   substance,   that  if  we  would  have  a  man 

on--oirineri3iai    gjye  himself  Up  wholly,   without  reserve  and 

without  thought  of  consequences,  to  any  work 
or  any  cause,  we  should  hold  out  to  him  rewards  with  no  com- 
mercial value;  a  mere  new  name,  a  trinket  and  a  bit  of  ribbon, 
a  metal  disk  with  a  few  graven  letters,  simple  mention  in  a  re- 
port of  an  order;  it  is  for  such  things  as  these  that  men  throw 
away  their  interests  and  their  pleasures  and  their  very  lives. 

Colonel  Napier,  refuting  the  argument  used  in  his  day  to 
justify  the  pillage  of  a  town  taken  by  storm,  that  soldiers  would 
not  fight  unless  they  had  the  hope  of  loot  (just  as,  even  in  our 
day,  it  has  been  argued  that  sailors  would  not  fight  unless  they 
had  the  hope  of  prize  money),  declared,  with  obvious  truth,  that 
of  all  the  hundreds  of  men  who  scrambled  through  or  fell  in  the 
breaches  of  Badajos  not  one,  if  sane  and  free  to  choose,  would 
have  faced  such  danger  for  ten  times  the  money  value  of  all  the 
plunder  he  could  expect  to  find.  Such  work  is  not  done  for  mere 
money  or  money's  worth ;  when  we  ask  a  man  to  take  his  life  in 
his  hands,  a  big  dividend  isn't  "  in  it "  as  a  bait  if  compared  with 
a  little  medal.  It  cannot  be  said  that  municipal  reformers  ask 


6  PATRIOTISM  IN  MUNICIPAL  AFFAIRS 

their  fellow  citizens  to  face  imminent  danger  to  life  or  limb,  but 
they  do  ask  these  fellow  citizens  to  join  in  a  tedious  and  a  labor- 
ious, a  costly  and  an  embittered  conflict  with  powerful  and  vin- 
dictive enemies;  they  seek  recruits  for  a  bloodless  but  obstinate, 
acrimonious  and  protracted  civic  warfare;  and,  to  secure  such 
enlistment,  they  may  well  remember  these  recognized  facts  of 
human  nature,  pointed  out  by  the  wisest  writers  and  thinkers 
and  proved  by  the  experience  of  mankind. 

It  is  important  to  remember  in  this  connection  that,  although 
superficial  observers  have  often  said  and  still  say  sometimes  that 
a.  city  is  a  "  business  corporation,  to  be  run  on  business  prin- 
ciples ",  this  utterance  combines  a  statement  substantially  true 
with  another  essentially  false.  The  affairs  of  a  city  ought  to  be 
"  run  on  business  principles  ",  just  as  the  affairs  of  a  church  or 
a  college  or  a  hospital  or  an  asylum  ought  to  be  "  run  on  business 
principles  " ;  that  is  to  say,  in  all  these  cases,  the  institution's 
money  ought  to  be  made  to  go  as  far  as  it  will  go  and  get  all  that 
it  can  get  A  man  who  voluntarily  works  three  days  to  do  what 
he  might  do  as  well  by  working  one  is  simply  a  fool ;  and,  since 
money  is,  after  all,  merely  past  labor  set  aside  for  future  use, 
like  the  electricity  in  a  storage  battery,  that  man  is  no  less  a  fool 
who  spends  three  dollars  of  his  own  money  to  get  what  he  could 
get  by  spending  one;  if  he  shall  thus  spend  money  which  is  not 
his  own,  money  given  him  to  spend  for  the  good  of  others,  and 
such  is  the  case  of  every  improvident  trustee,  public  or  private, 
then  he  is  something  far  worse  than  a  fool.  But  it  is  wholly 
untrue  that  a  municipality  is  a  "  business  corporation  "  in  the 
same  sense  as  a  bank  or  a  railroad  or  a  trading  company.  Like 
every  other  form  of  human  government,  it  ex- 
o  ject  o  jsts  to  make  tnose  subject  to  its  sway  happy 

through  righteousness;  and,  to  attain  this  great 
end,  it  needs  the  aid  of  all  those  agencies  which  preserve  and 
strengthen  and  purify  organized  human  society;  one  of  these 
agencies,  and  one  of  the  most  potent,  is  patriotism. 

As  I  have  already  intimated,  I  define  patriotism  as  a  form  of 
affection,  as  love  for  our  country,  for  our  country,  not,  of  course, 
in  the  sense  of  a  part  of  the  earth's  physical  surface,  not  even  in 
the  sense  of  the  people  dwelling  within  its  limits,  but  pictured  to 


CHARLES  J.  BONAPARTE  7 

the  mind  as  a  separate  being,  a  being  exercising  the  powers  and 
fulfiling  the  duties  of  sovereignty.  This  conception  is  so  clearly 
and  vividly  illustrated  in  some  of  the  very  early  speeches  made  by 
Prince  Bismarck  as  an  ultra-conservative  member  of  the  Prus- 
sian Landtag,  that  I  venture  to  refer  to  them  again,  although 
they  have  done  duty  for  me  on  some  previous  like  occasions,  and 
it  is  just  possible  that,  to  some  of  my  hearers,  what  I  am  about 
to  say  may  have  a  familiar  sound.  In  these  speeches  Prince 
Bismarck  drew  an  original  and  striking  contrast  between  "  the 
people  "  and  "  the  nation  ".  In  this  view  the  former  is  a  mere 
chance  assemblage  of  those  human  beings  who  happen  to  live  at 
a  particular  time  within  a  certain  territory,  with  no  rightful 
corporate  authority  and  no  capacity  for  its  exercise,  speaking 
and  acting  through  the  least  discreet,  the  most  presumptuous  of 
their  number,  those  whom  conceit  and  vulgar  ambition  make  self- 
appointed  leaders  in  the  attempt  at  an  impudent  usurpation,  and 
finally,  for  practical  purposes,  a  contemptible  and  disgusting,  but 
dangerous,  animal  "  braying  in  the  highways  ",  to  be  held  with 
bayonets  and  prisons  in  its  normal  state  of  proper  discipline  and 
obedience.  "  The  nation  "  is  a  being  wholly  different :  it  is  a 
composite,  spiritual  entity  made  up  of  all  those  who  on  earth 
have  lived,  of  all  those  who  hereafter  will  live,  as  well  as  of 
those  who  live  now,  under  the  sway  of  a  line  of  princes  who, 
-",  by]  divine  appointment,  discharge  towards  it 

J,he Jh*ory  of  the  function  of  the  brain  towards  the  body, 
the  Nation  „,,... 

This   being  is  not,   indeed,   immortal;   it  had 

a  beginning  and,  through  unworthiness  for  its  mission  or  re- 
bellion to  God's  will,  it  may  merit  and  suffer  death;  but  the 
span  of  its  life  is  measured  by  centuries  and,  while  it  lives  as  it 
should  live,  it  follows  out,  from  generation  to  generation,  a  des- 
tiny fixed  by  God,  under  the  guidance  of  kings  to  whom  the 
Deity  has  entrusted  the  miraculous  power  of  seeing,  hearing, 
feeling,  deciding,  speaking  and  acting,  in  short,  of  living  as  and 
for  the  whole. 

This  theory  of  the  origin  and  extent  of  royal  authority  is  one 
the  world  has  outgrown;  in  our  day  and  country  it  sounds  so 
strange  as  to  seem  absurd ;  we  can  hardly  believe  that  only  sixty 
years  ago,  a  man  of  such  superior  intelligence  could  have  sin- 


8  PATRIOTISM  IN  MUNICIPAL  AFFAIRS 

cerely,  or  even  seriously,  advanced  it.  But  the  conception  of  a 
nation  as  a  living  organism,  distinct,  not  only  from  each  indi- 
vidual dwelling  under  its  rule,  but  from  the  aggregate  of  indi- 
viduals who  may  so  dwell  at  any  particular  moment,  is  no  less 
true  than  profound:  the  American  nation  is  not  one  to-day  and 
another  to-morrow,  although  within  every  twenty-four  hours 
thousands  of  Americans  are  born  and  other  thousands  die,  fnany 
foreigners  become  Americans  and  some  Americans  become  for- 
eigners; any  more  than  I  am  another  man  at  this  instant  from 
what  I  was  five  minutes  since,  although  some  atoms  of  matter 
have  certainly  entered  into  and  some  have  no  less  certainly  left 
my  body  while  I  spoke  to  you :  the  same  nation  whose  baptismal 
certificate  was  signed  on  that  summer  morning  one  hundred 
and  thirty-four  years  ago  now  overshadows  the  new  world,  just 
as  surely  as  your  president  this  evening  is  the  same  man  who 
first  drew  breath — we  will  not  say  how  many  years  since.  A 
nation  is,  in  brief,  a  person,  not  a  multitude  of  persons  who,  for 
certain  purposes,  are  enabled  in  imagination  or  permitted  by  posi- 
tive law  to  act  and  be  dealt  with  as  one ;  a  real,  living  being,  not  a 
fiction  of  jurists  or  a  conscious  creature  of  the  mind;  and  from 
the  instinctive  recognition  of  the  truth  and  significance  of  its 
personality  arises  the  sentiment  which  we  call  "  patriotism  ". 

For  the  great  being,  with  and  under  whom  we  live,  and  of 
whom  we,  in  some  sense,  form  part,  towers  over  each  one  of  us 
as  a  source  of  incalculable  good,  a  picture  of  extraordinary 
beauty.  Almost  everything  which  makes  for  happiness  in  our 
days  and  nights,  material  comfort,  personal  security,  opportuni- 
ties for  fruitful  toil  and  untroubled  rest,  possibilities  of  increased 
enlightenment,  systematic  beneficence,  orderly  freedom,  all  these 
things  and,  in  fact,  all  that  makes  a  civilized  man  better  and  more 
fortunate  than  a  savage,  I  had  well-nigh  said  than  a  brute,  de- 
pend for  existence,  in  last  resort,  on  the  sword  of  sovereignty, 
which  is  wielded  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  nation.  This  rises 
between  the  spoiler  and  his  prey,  shelters  the  weak,  gives  a  sanc- 
tion to  promises,  makes  justice  real  and  peace  more  than  another 
name  for  bondage;  no  man  has  ever  owed  or  can  owe  to  any 
purely  human  institution  the  debt  which  every  man  in  a  civilized 
Christian  nation  owes  to  his  country. 


CHARLES  J.  BONAPARTE  9 

But  I  am  not  sure  that  this  debt  has  so  much  to  do  as  one 
might  suppose  it  had  with  his  love  for  his  country;  after  all, 
we  do  not  greatly  love  our  creditors,  and  self- 
love  of  Country     interest  is  the  Weakest  of  all  inducements  to 

self-sacrifice;  as  I  have  said,  nobody  cares  to  be  killed  to  se- 
cure an  extra  dividend.  An  ardent  patriot  is  a  man  who  has 
fallen  in  love  with  his  country,  and  one  does  not  fall  in  love 
as  a  matter  of  calculation  or  reasoning  no  matter  how  sound. 
It  is,  however,  in  every  way  natural  and  to  be  expected  that  his 
country  should  gain  his  love,  for  this  grand,  majestic  figure 
which  we  name  the  nation  is  emphatically  a  thing  of  beauty.  We 
do  not  see  it  as  a  composite  photograph  of  all  the  countless  human 
beings,  past,  present  and  to  come,  who  are  or  have  been  or  will 
be  included  within  it;  with  a  true  artistic  instinct,  the  national 
memory  has  rejected  as  excreta  all  that  was  ugly,  mean,  weak, 
selfish  in  our  fathers,  and  the  national  hope  veils  the  failures, 
deceptions,  miseries  which  await  our  children.  As  they  live  in 
our  nation's  life  the  men  of  the  Revolution  are  not  the  same  men 
who  were  actors  in  it ;  their  foibles  and  sins  and  vices  remain  for 
historians,  but  for  the  American  nation  all  in  them  that  was  un- 
worthy and  transient  has  ceased  to  exist  as  completely  as  Bene- 
dict Arnold  has  ceased  to  be  an  American.  With  an  apparent 
injustice  to  ourselves  and  our  times,  which  is  really  a  proof  of 
our  better  nature,  of  our  longing  for  true  and  high  ideals  in 
thought  and  life,  we  are  the  blemish,  our  days  the  age  of  bronze 
in  the  great  perpetual  panorama  of  the  nation's  birth,  growth 
and  destiny,  our  past  shadowed  by  the  memories  of  Washington 
and  his  comrades  in  counsel  and  in  arms,  our  future  illumined 
by  the  radiance  of  a  golden  age.  That  the  glorious  traditions 
and  the  imposing  greatness  of  their  country  had  profoundly  im- 
pressed the  imagination  and  engaged  the  affections  of  Americans 
was  shown  on  a  great  scale  in  1861,  on  a  small  scale,  or  at  least 
on  a  scale  small  by  comparison,  but  yet  with  unmistakable  sig- 
nificance, in  1898;  no  one  truly  doubts  that  we  are  a  patriotic 
people;  what  ought  such  a  people  to  think,  with  due  regard  to 
consistency  and  common  sense,  of  selfish  and  unscrupulous  politi- 
cal intriguers  who  may  perhaps  themselves  impudently  pose  as 
"  patriots  ",  but  would  make  every  public  office  and  every  func- 


10  PATRIOTISM  IN  MUNICIPAL  AFFAIRS 

tion  of  our  government,  national,  state  and  municipal,  a  source 
of  illicit  and  disgraceful  private  gain? 

The  conception  of  a  nation  as  a  vast  endless  chain  of  human- 
ity, coiled  over  the  ages,  with  unnumbered  links  in  heaven  and 

other  myriads  among  those  yet  to  live,  im- 
Pubhc  Office  a  jj  f  necessity  that  public  office  is  a  trust  in 
Trust  .,  J 

a   wider,   a   more  imperative,   a   more   sacred 

sense  than  the  word  usually  bears.  The  magistrate  is  a  trus- 
tee, not  merely  for  his  countrymen  of  to-day,  they  are  but  a 
small  fraction  of  his  cetteux  que  trustent;  authority  is  placed 
in  his  hands  that  he  make  fruitful  the  merits  and  sacrifices  of  the 
dead,  that  he  safeguard  the  virtue  and  happiness  of  the  unborn ; 
nay,  the  whole  people,  in  a  free  country,  make  up  one  great  cor- 
porate trustee,  holding  for  the  moment  all  the  vast  heritage  of 
the  future  from  the  past,  a  trustee  with  those  powers  and  those 
duties  which  the  Bismarck  of  1849  ascribed  to  the  king,  and, 
like  his  king,  a  trustee  chosen  and  commissioned  of  God.  For 
one  who  thus  looks  upon  the  dignity  and  duty  of  the  people  and 
of  their  officers  the  maxim :  "  To  the  victors  belong  the  spoils," 
is  monstrous  to  the  verge  of  blasphemy ;  an  abuse  of  public  au- 
thority to  promote  paltry,  selfish  interests  of  the  moment  is  a 
crime  against  mankind  approaching  to  a  sacrilege ;  he  who  would 
drug  the  people's  conscience  by  inflaming  partisan  prejudices  and 
awakening  popular  passions,  to  the  end  that  he  and  his  like  may 
profit  from  the  people's  breach  of  sacred  trust  and  forgetfulness 
of  divinely  imposed  duty,  is  an  enemy  to  humanity  a  thousand- 
fold worse  than  a  poisoner. 

If  we  suffer  such  as  he  to  guide  and  rule  us,  it  is  nothing  to  the 
purpose  that  we  may  have  free  institutions;  a  government,  like 
every  other  contrivance  of  man  or  production  of  nature,  must  be 
judged  by  its  fruits ;  however  we  may  talk  about  it,  the  worth  of 
American  democracy  will  be  gauged,  in  the  irreversible  judgment 
of  history,  by  a  true  answer  to  one  question,  namely,  To  what 
manner  of  men  does  it  entrust  political  power?  The  one  thing 
essential  to  good  government  is  good  men  to  govern ;  where,  as 
here,  every  citizen  forms  part  of  the  government,  if  the  govern- 
ment be  bad,  the  citizens  are  unworthy.  Let  us  study  then  the 
government  of  our  city  and  state  and  country;  let  us  recognize 


CHARLES  J.  BONAPARTE  II 

the  shameful  abuses  that  too  often  infest  almost  every  branch 
of  administration;  let  us  make  ourselves  feel  the  degradation 
of  our  politics  and  the  meanness  and  selfishness  of  our  public 
men,  and  then  let  us  see  to  it  that  all  these  wrongs  are  righted, 
by  making  sure  that  those  who  shall  deal  with  them  know  and 
love  the  right. 


Conservation  in  Municipalities. 

By  HON.  WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE,  RICHMOND,  INDIANA. 

My  subject  to-night  is  Conservation,  a  subject  which  during 
the  last  two  or  three  years  has  attracted  the  special  attention  of 
the  American  people.  We  had  been  before  that  time,  perhaps  we 
still  are,  a  very  wasteful  people,  both  individually  and  collectively. 
The  American  housewife  always  sent  a  good  many  more  things 
to  the  garbage  pile  than  the  French  housewife  would  have  done. 
The  American  farmer  cultivated  his  acres,  in  many  regions  of  our 
country,  with  very  little  reference  to  maintaining  the  fertility 
of  the  soil  by  proper  fertilization.  Our  forests  were  often 
stripped,  with  very  little  regard  for  their  preservation,  until 
some  of  us  began  to  wonder  whether  we  were  following  in  the 
footsteps  of  Spain."  If  any  of  you  have  been  to  the  plains  of 
Castile,  or  to  the  tablelands  of  Mexico,  you  can  see  there  vast 
regions,  fertile  in  the  past  and  capable  of  sustaining  an  enormous 
population,  which  have  become  comparatively  a  desert,  from  the 
lack  of  the  preservation  of  their  forests,  through  the  improvi- 
dence of  the  Spaniards. 

Collectively  we  were  even  more  improvident  in  giving  away 
the  bulk  of  our  national  domain.  Vast  tracts  of  our  most  fertile 
land  were  granted  to  railroad  companies  for  the 
Wastefulness  Purpose  of  "  developing  the  country,"  as  it  was 
then  said.  A  very  large  portion  of  our  domain 
was  also  sold  at  the  comparatively  low  price  of  $1.25  an  acre 
to  speculators  who  used  it  for  their  own  purposes.  But  at  last 
the  day  of  awakening  came.  Then  we  found  that  although  a 
great  part  of  the  national  domain  had  been  thus  disposed  of, 
there  was  a  good  deal  that  remained.  In  the  first  place,  there 
was  the  great  water-power  on  the  slopes  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  the  Sierras  by  the  Pacific;  there  were  the  great  coal 
beds  of  Alaska ;  there  were  many  virgin  forests  which  were  now 
placed  under  scientific  care  so  that  trees  should  be  restored  and 
replaced  as  fast  as  they  were  destroyed,  and  to-day  the  people 

(12) 


WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE  13 

have  awakened  to  the  dangers  of  the  waste  and  destruction  which 
had  been  going  on  for  these  many  years. 

But  in  regard  to  national  conservation  the  thing  seems  to  be  a 
long  way  off — in  the  Rockies — in  Alaska — and  although  we 
realize  in  a  vague  way  that  we  are  the  losers  by  our  national  ex- 
travagance and  would  keep  for  the  people  that  which  belongs  to 
the  people  and  not  permit  it  to  be  alienated  and  pass  into  the 
hands  of  a  few  monopolies — although  we  realize  that  in  a  vague 
way,  that  the  expenses  of  the  government  can  be  thus  reduced, 
that  taxation  can  be  lessened  and  that  the  cost  of  the  things  pro- 
duced upon  that  national  domain  may  also  be  lowered,  yet  at  the 
same  time  it  does  not  come  to  us  with  that  vital  significance  that 
a  thing  does  which  is  near  at  home. 

But  there  is  another  kind  of  conservation  that  lies  at  our  own 
doors — it  is  the  conservation  of  our  municipal  resources.  Every 
city,  every  county,  every  township  in  America  is 
Municipa  tjie  possessor  of  property  which  if  it  were  in  the 

hands  of  private  persons  would  give  large  re- 
turns. Now  no  one  will  claim  that  it  ought  to  be  used  in  exactly 
the  same  way  by  the  public,  that  it  ought  to  be  used  for  profit  to 
the  same  extent  as  if  it  were  private  property,  yet  at  the  same 
time  we  have  been  immensely  wasteful  of  those  municipal  re- 
sources, just  in  the  same  way  that  we  have  been  of  our  national 
resources.  The  streets  of  our  city  are  immensely  valuable  and 
their  value  grows  year  by  year.  The  parks  of  our  city,  many  of 
our  public  edifices,  the  roads  in  the  country,  all  these  things  have 
a  very  great  and  constantly-increasing  value,  but  we  have  wasted 
them  in  the  same  way  that  we  have  wasted  much  of  our  national 
domain.  We  needed  some  new  improvement — an  electric  line, 
a  railway  through  the  streets,  new  water-works — we  were  anx- 
ious to  have  that  at  once,  and  the  result  was  that  we  improvidently 
placed  in  private  hands,  the  hands  of  some  private  monopoly, 
these  possessions,  which  increase  year  by  year  in  value,  whose 
power  to  earn  increases  year  by  year,  which  ought  to  have  been 
kept  for  our  benefit  or  leased  out  upon  short  terms  only.  That 
is  the  problem  of  municipal  conservation. 

Not  long  ago  my  wife  said  to  me,  "  A  city  ought  not  to  require 
taxes  from  its  citizens,  it  ought  to  be  able  to  pay  dividends  on  the 


I4  CONSERVATION  IN  MUNICIPALITIES 

property  it  owns."  Well,  that  seemed  to  me  at  first  something 
like  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  well  adapted  to  the  pursuit  of  the  feminine 
mind  and  I  wanted  to  dismiss  it,  but  the  good  lady  argued  the 
case  with  me  and  the  more  she  argued  it  the  more  she  convinced 

me.  Her  argument  was  an  application  to  purely 
Cities  Without  municipal  questions  of  a  theory  very  similar  to 

that  set  forth  by  Henry  George  in  his  "  Progress 
and  Poverty  " — the  single  tax.  She  said :  "  Take  this  city  where 
we  live;  the  land  which  underlies  it  would  be  worth  for  farm- 
ing purposes  a  hundred  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  an  acre, 
that  is  all ;  now  it  is  worth,  parts  of  it,  many  thousands  of  dollars 
for  a  small  fraction  of  an  acre.  How  did  that  value  arise  ?  Why, 
it  arose  because  the  city  has  come,  because  people  built  houses 
close  to  each  other  and  started  industries.  That  is  the  value  that 
the  city  gives.  Where  the  city  gives  value  it  has  the  right  to  take 
value,  it  has  the  right  to  draw  its  income  from  this  increased 
value  of  the  land.  So  that  if  a  city  were  caught  young  and  the 
property  of  that  city  were  conserved  for  the  common  benefit  there 
would  be  no  need  of  levying  any  other  tax  upon  its  citizens  but, 
upon  the  contrary,  the  city  would  pay  dividends  to  those  citizens, 
not  only  to  those  who  own  land  but  to  all  of  them.  That  seems 
extravagant,  but  in  that  case  the  city  simply  taxes  the  value  that 
it  gives,  taxes  nothing  else.  It  does  not  tax  the  produce  of  labor. 
I  saw  not  long  afterwards  in  the  newspapers  an  account  of  a 
town  here  in  our  country,  the  town  of  Fairhope,  on  Mobile 
_  .  ,  Bay,  not  a  large  place;  it  was  settled  by  some 

immigrants  from  Iowa ;  they  determined  to  start 
their  town  that  way ;  they  took  the  town  young,  the  citizens  leased 
the  land  from  the  municipality  and  built  their  city  and  they 
have  been  running  it  for  about  fifteen  years.  They  are  able  to 
carry  on  their  government  without  any  taxes,  themselves  paying 
the  state  and  county  taxes ;  to  have  a  telephone  system ;  to  have 
schools,  public  libraries  and  a  free  public  dock  and  the  town  is 
said  to  be  prosperous.  Now  I  think  that  this  town  would  be  a 
very  good  object  for  investigation  by  the  National  Municipal 
League.  If  towns  and  cities  are  to  be  established  hereafter  it 
may  be  a  good  thing  to  know  the  best  way  to  do  it 

That  is  one  example.     But  the  examples  in  this  country  are 


WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE  i$ 

comparatively  rare  by  the  side  of  those  abroad.  There  is  iq 
Sweden  a  town  by  the  name  of  Orson  which  did  not  own  all  the 
land  upon  which  it  was  built,  did  not  lease  it  all,  and  yet  that 
town,  without  any  taxation  upon  its  inhabitants,  supports  a  street 
railroad  for  the  free  use  of  all,  supports  a  library,  and  a  public 
school  and  pays  its  own  taxes  to  the  government.  How  does  it 
do  it  ?  It  does  it  from  the  product  of  the  trees  which  are  grown 
in  and  around  the  town.  The  citizens  of  the  past  generation  were 
provident,  they  planted  these  trees,  of  good  sort,  valuable  for 
timber,  and  now  their  descendants  are  cutting  the  trees  down, 
replacing  them  as  fast  as  they  are  taken  (the  forests  are  not  de- 
nuded) and  there  is  enough  profit  from  their  sale  to  pay  all  the 

taxes  of  that  town  and  to  give  it  a  free  street 
_,UI  railway.  That  is  an  extraordinary  case,  but 

that  is  only  one.  Mr.  Ockel,  in  the  Westminster 
Reviezv,  if  I  recollect  right  the  periodical  in  which  it  appeared, 
mentions  the  fact  that  in  Germany  there  are  now  1,500  villages 
that  are  supported  from  the  produce  of  communal  lands,  without 
taxation  upon  their  inhabitants,  and  that  in  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  those  towns  and  villages  there  is  a  dividend  actually  paid 
to  these  inhabitants ;  and  in  those  places  they  are  not  very  anxious 
ot  have  immigrants  or  new  citizens,  they  do  not  encourage  them. 
That  is  done  largely  from  the  product  of  forestry  alone,  from 
cutting  the  communal  forests.  In  some  cities  the  communal 
church  is  built  wholly  out  of  such  proceeds.  In  the  town  of  For- 
bach,  for  instance,  a  very  large  communal  church  has  been  built 
out  of  the  product  of  forest  cutting  and  it  is  sustained  out  of 
that,  having  an  income  of  between  fifteen  and  twenty  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  In  some  cases  the  products  of  those  forests  are 
very  great  per  acre.  They  have  a  fine  forest  near  the  city  of 
Zurich  which  belongs  to  the  community,  from  which  the  net 
return  is  about  $12.00  an  acre.  That  certainly  seems  an  enor- 
mous amount  from  the  cultivation  of  a  forest.  Of  course,  if 
the  municipality  has  enough  land  to  do  this  sort  of  thing  it  can 
pay  its  own  expenses,  and  it  need  not  tax  its  citizens.  The  trouble 
is  that  hardly  any  of  our  American  cities  were  caught  young 
enough.  A  town  needs  to  be  caught  before  it  has  alienated  its 
most  valuable  possessions.  The  most  we  can  do  is  to  approxi- 


16  CONSERVATION  IN  MUNICIPALITIES 

mate  the  result,  that  is,  to  lessen  taxation  by  a  profitable  use  of 
the  property  which  still  remains  the  property  of  the  city.  A  great 
deal  could  be  done  if  we  had  large  tracts  and  the  trees  on  those 
tracts  were  used  and  cultivated  under  proper  arrangements;  a 
great  deal  could  be  done  even  if  the  trees  along  our  streets  were 
cultivated  and  replaced  in  the  same  manner  by  the  city,  in  those 
cases  where  the  city  owns  the  fee  and  has  the  right  to  the  trees. 
A  great  deal  can  be  done  from  the  mere  use  of  the  streets  them- 
selves, for  there  is  just  as  much  unearned  increment  in  a  street 
as  there  is  in  a  town  lot.  What  do  you  mean  by 

Unearned  unearned  increment?    If  I  buy  a  lot  out  in  the 

Increment  , .   , 

suburbs,  that  has  very  little  value  to-day,  and 

get  it  for  almost  nothing,  and  people  go  out  in  that  direction  and 
build  around  it,  it  becomes  a  great  many  times,  sometimes  scores 
of  times  or  hundreds  of  times,  of  its  original  value.  That 
value  is  not  conferred  by  any  effort  of  mine,  I  am  not  en- 
titled to  any  return  on  it,  yet  I  get  the  return  and  the  city, 
which  confers  the  value,  gets  no  return  except  the  very  limited 
taxation  each  year  upon  the  value  of  the  lot.  What  remains  to 
a  city  to-day?  The  streets  of  the  city  have  an  unearned  incre- 
ment, increasing  in  value  all  the  time,  just  the  same  as  the  lot 
has — the  street  railroad,  increasing  its  traffic  as  the  town  grows, 
the  water-works  increasing  the  connections  with  the  different 
houses  as  the  towns  grow,  always  supplying  more  and  more  water 
as  the  town  increases  in  size,  the  telephone  always  with  more 
connections  as  the  town  grows,  so  that  prudent  investors  invest 
at  a  very  low  rate  of  immediate  return  because  they  know  there 
is  this  constant  rise  in  value  in  a  growing  city.  That  rise  in 
value  ought  to  be  kept  for  the  city,  not  for  the  stockholders.  It 
ought  not  to  be  given  for  long  terms  upon  a  certain  fixed  basis, 
so  much  per  year.  Least  of  all  it  ought  not  to  be  conferred  gra- 
tuitously, as  nearly  all  of  our  cities  have  in  the  past  conferred 
their  franchises.  When  a  term  is  fixed,  that  term  ought  not  to  be 
too  long  and  the  return  ought  always  to  be  graduated  with  the 
rising  value  of  the  thing  conferred.  That  is,  that  as  the  value 
of  the  water-works  system  or  of  the  street  railway  or  lighting 
plant,  or  whatever  it  may  be — as  that  value  grows  the  return 
should  grow  also. 


WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE  17 

If  our  cities  had  been  conducted  upon  that  basis  at  the  begin- 
ning the  present  taxes  would  be  very  greatly  reduced.    And  one 
of  the  very  best  ways  to  do  that  is.  where  it  is 

TW  *      "  1 

possible,  to  have  the  municipality  both  own  and 
control  the  plant.  Most  of  us  used  to  be  op- 
posed to  municipal  ownership,  and  with  very  good  reason,  be- 
cause, we  said,  "  Why,  a  city  doesn't  know  how  to  transact  busi- 
ness; the  council  is  always  elected  as  a  mere  matter  of  politics; 
the  government  is  corrupt ;  if  it  can't  make  a  good  contract  with 
anybody,  how  can  it  run  a  plant?"  But  there  is  a  brighter  day 
dawning  for  American  municipalities.  By  a  process  of  grad- 
ual evolution  the  necessary  business  sagacity  to  do  this  thing 
is  becoming  more  and  more  the  possession  of  the  municipality. 
I  might  give  you  a  few  cases.  For  instance,  in  the  town  where 
I  live  we  were  oppressed  by  very  excessive  rates  by  a  light- 
ing and  power  company  supplying  electricity  and  gas  and  it 
was  determined  to  build  a  municipal  plant  to  compete  (a  rather 
dangerous  thing  to  do)  with  the  plant  that  was  thus  run  by 
private  ownership.  Most  of  us  predicted  that  the  thing  could 
not  be  made  to  pay.  But  after  some  years  of  experiment  it 
has  been  made  to  pay  us  well,  although  running  in  competition 
with  this  private  plant  that  has  not  paid;  it  has  greatly  reduced 
the  price  of  electricity;  not  only  that,  but  it  is  found  nec- 
essary now  to  resort  to  the  city  plant  in  order  to  help  out  the 
deficiencies  in  the  budget  in  other  parts  of  the  administration; 
our  electrical  plant  is  what  we  have  to  depend  on  to  do  this, 
and  besides  it  is  making  a  good  profit.  In  the  first  place,  they 
charged  us  ninety  dollars  a  year  for  an  electric  light  at  the  corner 
of  the  streets,  this  private  plant.  When  we  established  our  city 
plant  we  reduced  that  to  about  half;  last  year,  when  we  could 
not  make  ends  meet  any  other  way,  it  was  determined  that  the 
electric  plant  should  furnish  the  city  with  light  for  nothing; 
now  the  city  gets  it  for  nothing  at  all,  to  help  out  the  budget. 

Another  example  is  in  the  town  of  Anderson,  only  an  hour's 
ride  from  my  own  city.  There  the  city  owns  both  the  electric 
plant  and  the  water-works.  There  is  still  a  very  considerable 
debt  upon  them  which  they  are  gradually  paying  off  out  of  a 
sinking  fund,  paying  interest  and  paying  the  debt  itself,  and  a 


l8  CONSERVATION  IN  MUNICIPALITIES 

careful  computation  shows  that,  after  the  debt  is  paid,  they  can 
reduce  their  taxes  very  greatly,  and  if  finally  the  plant  shall 
continue  to  improve  and  the  city  to  grow,  they  may  be  able  to 
eliminate  most  of  their  taxes  from  the  income  of  those  two  plants. 
Now  that  is  an  extraordinary  statement  but  many  believe  it  and 
their  figures  would  tend  to  show  it. 

At  Los  Angeles  not  very  long  ago,  according  to  a  clipping  sent 
me  by  Mr.  Woodruff,  the  city  was  bonded,  I  think,  for  three  mil- 
lions and  a  half  in  order  to  contruct  a  power  plant  in  connection 
with  their  aqueduct,  which  at  the  outset  would  supply  40,000 
horse-power.  This  power  could  be  leased  for  a  sufficient  amount 
to  pay  the  interest,  pay  the  sinking  fund,  and  finally  to  liqui- 
date the  debt,  while  leaving  the  other  use  of  the  water  as  clear 
gain  for  the  city.  We  certainly  are  getting  ahead,  there  is  no 
doubt  about  it.  And  probably  it  is  better  that  the  smaller  towns 
should  do  these  things  first,  before  the  larger  cities. 

We  must  not  try  to  grow  too  fast.  There  should  be  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  But  the 
problem  of  municipal  ownership  is  practical,  it  is  workable.  In 
our  present  communities  we  are  developing  a  sagacity  which 
will  enable  us  to  do  it  adequately.  These  municipal-ownership 
investments  are  made  upon  the  same  basis  as  those  of  the  finan- 
cier who  invests  in  a  street  railroad,  and  regards  is  as  one  of  the 
very  best  investments  that  can  be  made,  even  though  it  may  pay 
at  the  outset  only  a  small  rate  of  interest.  That  is  what  induces 
these  magnates  of  finance  to  invest  in  the  water-power  in  the  Far 
West,  knowing  that  that  power  in  its  adaptation  to  purposes  of 
electricity  constantly  increases  in  value.  That  increase  in  value 
ought  to  belong  to  the  people — to  the  people  of  the  municipality 
in  the  one  case  and  to  the  people  of  the  nation  at  large  in  the 
other  case.  Municipal  ownership  may  be  just  as  much  a  part  of 
the  problem  of  conservation  as  national  ownership. 

There  is  another  thing  that  cannot  be  measured,  perhaps,  in 
dollars  and  cents  and  that  is  the  conservation  of  the  advantages 
of  nature  for  the  purpose  of  scenic  beauty.  A 
very  remarkable  decision  has  been  recently  ren- 
dered by  a  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States  in  Colorado.  It 
was  first  referred  to  in  the  New  York  Tribune;  you  will  find  a 


WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE  19 

copy  of  the  reference  to  it  in  this  week's  Outlook.  It  appears 
that  a  city  there  had,  close  by,  a  little  canyon  and  in  the  canyon 
there  was  a  water-fall,  and  as  the  water  fell  the  spray  watered 
the  trees,  and  there  was  a  beautiful  spot  which  was  used  by  the 
people  of  the  city  as  a  park  and  a  place  of  refreshment.  And 
now  a  water  company  proposed  to  divert  that,  and  according  to 
the  constitution  of  Colorado  it  had  a  right  to  take  any  unap- 
propriated stream  and  use  it  for  a  purpose  that  was  beneficial  to 
the  public.  But  an  injunction  was  brought  by  the  city  in  order 
to  keep  the  beauty  and  natural  advantages  of  the  city  park  and 
the  court  upheld  the  injunction,  holding  that  the  stream  was 
already  appropriated  for  a  beneficial  purpose.  The  judge  said: 
"  Is  there  no  benefit  in  health  ?  Is  there  no  benefit  in  rest  and  re- 
freshment? "  And  he  decided  that  there  was  a  property  value 
to  the  city  in  the  beauty  of  its  park  when  thus  maintained.  Now 
it  is  a  good  thing  for  our  courts  to  declare  that  there  is  a  prop- 
erty right  in  beauty  of  that  kind.  In  these  times  when  courts  are 
so  sacrosanct  that  even  criticism  of  their  action  and  dissent  from 
their  opinion,  in  a  public  manner,  by  a  layman,  is  thought  to  be 
entirely  wrong  and  improper,  it  is  particularly  gratifying 
that  the  property  right  in  beauty  is  thus  recognized,  for  unfor- 
tunately it  has  been  too  often  the  case  with  our  judicial  systeni 
that  property  rights  are  far  better  protected  than  human  welfare. 
I  come  now  to  another  question  of  conservation,  not  that  kind 
of  conservation  which  can  put  so  many  dollars  into  the  city 

treasury,  but  conservation  of  a  far  more  import- 
on  erva  ion  o  ant  character — conservation  of  human  life — of 
Human  Lite 

the  human  body.     Every  man,  during  a  great 

portion  of  his  life,  at  least  from  20  years  to  65,  perhaps  before 
and  perhaps  long  afterwards,  is  a  useful  member  of  society 
and  a  productive  agent.  The  first  years  of  life  are  devoted 
to  nurture,  to  education,  to  an  investment,  and  it  is  the  active 
years  of  a  man's  life  when  he  makes  the  return  for  such  invest- 
ment. In  addition  to  the  higher  purposes  of  human  life,  the  life 
of  every  normal,  healthy  man  is  of  value  to  the  community. 
Every  sort  of  an  industrial  or  economic  or  municipal  system 
which  by  its  negligence  causes  an  unnecessary  accident  to  a 
human  life,  cutting  short  that  activity,  paralyzing  it  through  sick- 


20  CONSERVATION  IN  MUNICIPALITIES 

ness  or  mutilation,  is  committing  a  gross  waste  upon  the  com- 
munity— greater  than  the  waste  of  giving  an  improvident  fran- 
chise. Any  system  of  domestic  management  of  a  city  which 
permits  an  epidemic  to  spread,  to  take  men  off,  or  cripple  their 
days  in  disease,  anything  of  that  kind  causes  a  far  greater  waste 
in  city  assets  than  even  the  corrupt  administration  of  which  we 
all  complain.  That  is  one  of  the  higher  forms  of  conservation. 
Bad  food,  bad  air,  bad  drainage,  inadequate  hospitals,  intem- 
perance, the  use  of  baleful  drugs,  the  abuse  of  children — all 
those  things  make  waste  in  the  community  . 

To  prevent  this  waste,  state  and  national  legislation  are  val- 
uable, but  most  of  these  things  can  be  wisely  controlled  by  muni- 
cipal regulations.  Proper  control  of  the  markets  of  a  city  and  the 
abattoirs  where  animals  are  slaughtered,  proper  provisions  in 
regard  to  air  space  and  ventilation,  both  in  public  buildings  and 
in  private  dwellings,  proper  sanitary  disposal  of  the  sewage  and 
the  garbage,  strict  regulation  of  the  liquor  traffic  to  the  discour- 
agement of  intemperance,  proper  control  of  physicians  and  apoth- 
ecaries in  regard  to  the  distribution  of  baleful  drugs,  suitable  con- 
trol of  the  milk  and  water  supply  of  a  city,  that  the  children  may 
not  contract  tuberculosis  and  other  preventable  diseases — all  these 
things  are  necessary  features  of  municipal  conservation  of  far 
greater  importance  than  mere  economy  in  the  administration  of 
the  government. 

If  I  were  not  trespassing  a  little  upon  the  theme  of  my  suc- 
cessor, the  President  of  our  League,  I  might  say  that  the  conser- 
vation of  spiritual  energy  is  just  as  important 

erva  ion  c       ag  ^e  conservation  of  physical  energy — conser- 
Spiritual  Energy        .  ,  .  ,  ,  - 

vation,  among  other  things,  of  that  love  for  one  s 

city  which  is  the  source  of  all  municipal  well-being.  A  city  by 
being  beneficent  and  beautiful  and  great  and  all  that  men  love, 
inspires  love  in  the  citizens  and  the  love  of  the  citizens  makes  the 
city  better.  The  highest  kind  of  patriotism  in  past  days  was 
patriotism  for  one's  city.  In  the  old  days  of  Greece  the  city 
was  all  they  had.  So  in  the  days  of  medieval  Italy,  and  what 
cities  rose  from  their  patriotism  and  from  their  love!  Athens, 
the  light  of  the  world ;  Florence,  that  gave  the  new  lamp  of  learn- 
ing to  mankind ;  Venice,  that  led  in  the  commerce  of  the  Middle 


WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE  21 

Ages — great  cities  these — and  the  very  highest  maxims  of  pa- 
triotism were  those  of  the  great  philosopher  Socrates  in  regard 
to  the  love  which  was  due  to  the  city  of  Athens,  of  which  he  was 
a  citizen.  You  remember  the  history.  He  had  been  condemned 
to  death ;  the  day  was  fixed ;  the  sacred  vessel  had  returned  from 
Delos  and  was  already  in  the  offing;  his  friends  told  him  the 
way  was  open  to  flee  and  save  a  life  that  was  so  precious  to  his 
country,  and  what  was  Socrates'  answer?  Even  the  sacred 
text  do  not  contain  maxims  of  patriotism  so  lofty  as  those  of 
the  Athenian  sage.  He  called  attention  to  all  the  benefits  which 
were  conferred  upon  the  citizens  by  the  city  in  which  they  lived — 
the  liberty  which  allowed  them  to  go  elsewhere  if  they  were  dis- 
satisfied, the  training,  the  education,  the  protection;  now  when 
it  came  to  demand  a  return,  everything  was  due,  whether  it  be 
to  go  to  battle,  and  fall  in  slaughter,  that  must  be  done,  or  if 
the  law  condemned  one  to  die  he  must  die  uncomplainingly,  even 
though  the  edict  were  unjust.  So  disregarding  the  advice  of  his 
friends  he  took  the  hemlock  with  calm  and  cheerful  countenance 
and  sacrificed  his  life  at  the  command  of  his  city.  Now  the  same 
feeling  ought  to  animate  us.  More  and  more  the  city  becomes 
part  of  our  lives.  Of  course,  we  divide  our  allegiance.  We  have 
the  nation,  we  have  the  state  and  we  have  the  city.  The  Athen- 
ian had  only  one,  the  Florentine  had  only  one.  His  devotion  per- 
haps was  more  complete.  But  we  owe  devotion  too. 

So  we  have  those  three  kinds  of  conservation — conservation 
of  property,  conservation  of  men's  bodies,  conservation  of  men's 
souls.  More  and  more  intimate  becomes  the  relation  of  the  city 
to  the  individual,  for  with  all  the  complexities  of  modern  civili- 
zation we  see  that  it  is  not  so  much  the  independence  of  the  citi- 
zen and  of  the  individual  as  the  interdependence  between  the 
individual  and  the  city — the  municipality  and  the  state  going 
more  and  more  into  men's  lives.  Whatever  we  may  think 
of  the  new  nationalism,  however  we  may  feel  as  to  the  centraliza- 
tion of  power  in  the  federal  government,  I  think  we  can  have 
but  one  view  of  that  new  municipalism  which  shall  control  and 
make  more  intimate  the  relations  of  the  individual  with  the 
immediate  community  in  which  he  lives. 


The  New  Municipal  Idea. 

By  CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF,  PHILADELPHIA, 
Secretary. 

When  George  McAneny  assumed  the  office  of  president  of 

the  Borough  of  Manhattan  on  the  ist  day  of  January  last  he 

created  a  re-organization  squad,  consisting  of 

George  Qne   Q£   ^n     comptroller's    expert   accountants, 

McAneny'sWork  *  ^ 

three  of  the  men  from  the  office  of  the  Commis- 
sioner of  Accounts,  three  of  his  own  appointees,  and  two  men 
from  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research.  This  squad  got  to  work 
before  the  end  of  the  first  week  in  January,  and  for  three  months 
gave  their  undivided  attention  to  the  task  before  them.  The 
first  thing  done  was  to  amalgamate  the  various  divisions  of  ac- 
counts and  supplies  that  had  been  operating  in  separate  bureaus. 
In  the  city  hall  offices  there  were  16  or  17  clerks  reproducing  on 
a  small  scale  (for  the  president's  "elbow  benefit")  the  broader 
work  of  the  department  itself,  among  them  the  auditor,  who 
was  supposed  to  be  at  the  head  of  the  entire  accounting  system. 
This  force  was  transferred  to  a  central  division  of  audit  and 
accounts,  with  the  auditor  as  the  chief  in  charge.  This  resulted 
in  the  abolition  of  three  of  the  separate  bureau  offices  and 
effected  a  saving  of  five  men  out  of  the  seventeen.  The  pur- 
chasing and  other  outside  business  functions  were  also  central- 
ized in  the  commissioner's  office. 

To  consolidate  the  bureaus  themselves  under  the  administrative 
direction  of  the  commissioner  of  public  works  was  the  next 
step.  Under  the  law  the  commissioner  is  the  deputy  of  the  presi- 
dent and  may  discharge  whatever  function  is  assigned  to  him 
by  the  president.  Mr.  McAneny's  predecessor  had  used  his  com- 
missioner as  a  sort  of  adjutant,  with  practically  no  independent 
power,  bureau  chiefs  all  reporting  direct  to  the  president  of  the 
borough.  Mr.  McAneny  appointed  as  commissioner  a  highly 
capable  young  lawyer  with  no  particular  political  affiliations.  He 
has  done  admirably.  The  positions  of  superintendent  of  high- 
ways and  superintendent  of  sewers,  formerly  held  by  Tammany 

(22) 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  23 

district  leaders,  were  abolished  altogether;  the  chief  engineer 
in  each  bureau  was  made  the  outside  head,  subject  to  the  juris- 
diction of  the  commissioner.  The  assistant  commissioner  had 
had  experience  under  Commissioner  DeForest  in  organizing  the 
department  of  tenements  in  Mayor  Low's  administration,  and 
enjoyed  a  high  reputation  as  a  municipal  accountant  and  as  a 
general  expert  in  municipal  government.  A  new  bureau  of  en- 
gineering with  a  consulting  engineer  at  the  head  was  established. 
A  new  superintendent  of  buildings,  one  of  the  most  important 
offices  in  the  entire  city,  was  appointed  in  the  person  of  an  archi- 
tectural engineer  who  stood  practically  at  the  head  of  his  pro- 
fession in  the  city,  and  who  for  years  past  had  served  as  chief 
engineer  of  the  building  department,  and  latterly  as  a  member 
of  the  commission  appointed  to  revise  the  building  code.  As 
superintendent  of  public  buildings  and  offices  President  Mc- 
Aneny  appointed  his  former  secretary,  who  had  expert  experi- 
ence in  the  handling  of  affairs  of  this  sort. 

With  this  staff  a  start  was  made  on  the  re-organization  of 
the  bureaus  themselves.     All  unnecessary  officers  from  highly- 
paid   superintendents   down   to   attendants   and 

.Reorganization  messengers,  were  abolished.  The  office  hours 
oi  Bureaus  _  ., 

common  to  all  were  lengthened  an  hour.    Daily 

time  sheets  were  installed.  Cost  records  were  established.  The 
ordinary  rules  that  apply  in  private  business  offices  were  put  in 
force.  At  the  same  time  an  order  was  given  that  no  appoint- 
ments or  removals  in  the  competitive  classes,  and  no  transfers  or 
other  changes  of  status  of  any  kind,  were  to  be  made  for  politi- 
cal reasons.  President  McAneny  took  pains  to  give  general  cur- 
rency to  the  impression  that  every  man  would  be  dealt  with 
squarely  according  to  his  merits,  and  that  capable  and  faithful 
men  would  have  nothing  to  fear. 

Early  in  January  the  corps  of  outside  men  known  as  corpora- 
tion inspectors  (appointed  without  reference  to  the  civil  service 
rules  to  inspect  disturbances  of  street  surfaces  by  the  various 
railway  and  other  public  service  corporations,  and  to  see  that 
these  were  properly  restored),  were  abolished.  Their  salaries 
had  been  paid  by  the  inspected  corporations,  57  were  on  the  rolls 
on  January  ist,  but  none  were  retained,  as  they  had  done  prac- 


24  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

tically  nothing  except  draw  their  pay.  The  whole  system  had 
been  a  species  of  blackmail  through  the  operation  of  which  the 
city  found  itself  unable  to  take  any  steps  to  compel  companies  to 
do  their  duty,  for  the  reason  that  they  had  practically  bought  im- 
munity in  this  fashion. 

In  the  place  of  these  corporation  inspectors  the  president  of 
the  borough  appointed  a  corps  of  25  young  engineers  whose 
salary  checks  are  handed  to  them  at  the  office  of  the  department 
and  not  at  those  of  the  corporations.  They  have  been  doing  ef- 
fective work  and  the  borough  has  gone  out  of  the  black-mailing 
business  and  the  corporations  are  inspected.  There  is  more  work 
being  done  to-day  in  the  direction  of  correcting  defective  street 
surfaces  for  which  the  corporations  are  responsible,  than  there 
had  been  in  years  past. 

Expressed  in  figures,  the  result  of  President  McAneny's  re- 
organization has  been  about  as  follows :  Against  the  1910  appro- 
priation, in  round  numbers  $400,000  has  been 

.-,e8  saved.    This  in  the  main  has  been  used  to  take 

Reorganization  .   ,  , 

care  of  those  measures  of  work  that  previously 

had  been  neglected,  such  for  instance  as  the  proper  repair  of 
the  asphalt  pavement,  the  reconstruction  of  the  Washington 
Market,  the  installation  of  new  elevators  in  the  county  court 
house,  a  more  extended  installation  of  street  signs,  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  new  engineering  bureaus. 

In  making  up  the  1911  budget  the  1910  items  have  been  cut 
in  proportion  to  the  saving  effected.  The  net  saving  in  the 
salary  list  has  been  $218,578.  The  allowance  for  hire  of  teams 
and  carts  used  in  the  several  bureaus  has  been  reduced  from 
$224,275  to  $155,099.  The  allowance  for  fuel  for  public  build- 
ings and  offices  has  been  cut  from  $107,000  to  $67,000.  In 
February  last  President  McAneny  took  the  initiative  in  basing 
the  city  coal  specifications  upon  the  British  thermal  unit  system. 
As  a  result  of  this  and  of  the  installation  a  little  later  of  new 
types  of  grate  and  draft  equipment  the  borough  offices  have 
been  saving  in  coal  bills  about  at  the  rate  of  40  per  cent.  Other 
specimen  reductions  include  $47,500  in  cost  of  cleaning  the  public 
buildings,  a  drop  from  $191,300  to  $147,800,  and  a  saving  of 
$12,096  in  such  an  item  as  the  carting  of  the  refuse  from  the 
public  markets. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  25 

Expenses  have  been  going  down  and  the  efficiency  of  the 
several  bureaus  has  been  going  up.  The  principal  item,  and  the 
one  that  touches  the  public  most  directly,  is  the  repair  of  asphalt 
pavements.  The  prevalence  of  holes  and  ruts  for  two  or  three 
years  before,  has  been  notorious.  The  appropriation  made  to 
cover  those  repairs  for  the  year  was  $175,000.  Out  of  the  sav- 
ing inaugurated  $150,000  was  added  to  this  item,  and  with  this 
addition  the  holes  have  actually  been  "  plugged  up  ".  There  are 
very  few  to  be  found  except  where  they  have  been  opened  for 
construction  or  repair  work  by  the  water  department  or  by  the 
private  gas  or  electric  companies,  always  under  guarantee  in 
such  cases  that  the  surface  will  be  restored  as  promptly  as  pos- 
sible by  those  who  have  disturbed  them  at  their  own  expense. 
Up  to  October  I,  1910,  the  highway  bureau  had  repaired  262,890 
square  yards  of  asphalt  against  169,525  square  yards  during 
the  corresponding  period  in  1909.  A  steam  roller  patrol  has 
been  established  for  the  holes  which  are  "  caught  young  ".  These 
are  repaired  before  they  have  a  chance  to  spread.  Other  things 
that  have  been  accomplished,  all  within  the  reduced  appropria- 
tions, may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

The  repair  of  186,644  square  yards  of  stone  block  pavement, 
against  146,687  square  yards  in  the  same  period  in  1909.  Forty- 
three  gangs  in  1909 — 30  gangs  in  1910. 

A  very  considerable  increase  in  the  area  of  streets  not  only  re- 
paired, but  completely  repaved. 

A  start  made  upon  a  survey  of  a  new  sewer  for  the  lower 
parts  of  the  island,  to  replace  the  present  antiquated  and  over- 
taxed system. 

Steps  taken  to  widen  the  roadways  of  such  important  cross- 
town  thoroughfares  as  59th,  42nd,  34th  and  23rd  Streets,  and 
the  establishment  of  a  bureau  of  traffic  obser- 
A^Mevements  vation  to  determine  where  relief  is  most  required 
on  other  thoroughfares. 

Completion  of  the  long-delayed  work  of  repaving  Delancey 
Street,  and  of  properly  laying  out  the  parkways  on  that  thor- 
oughfare. Delancey  Street,  when  this  work  is  finished,  will  be 
what  it  was  intended  to  be — the  great  boulevard  of  the  East  Side, 
and  not  the  mass  of  wreckage  that  it  has  been  for  five  years. 

Reorganization  of  the  sidewalk  and  encumbrance  division. 
Here  21  inspectors  were  dropped  at  one  time  in  February.  Last 


26  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

year  23  inspectors  on  the  encumbrance  work  alone  turned  in  13,- 
582  inspections.  This  year,  with  the  force  reduced  to  13  in- 
spectors, the  number  of  inspections  has  been  almost  trebled, 
being,  up  to  October  ist,  30,464. 

Reconstruction  of  Washington  Market,  and  the  clearing  of 
the  sidewalks  of  the  outside  stands.  This  will  cost  $40,000,  all 
of  which  will  be  paid  for  from  moneys  saved  at  other  points. 

Appropriation  of  $300,000  secured  for  the  new  Essex  Market 
Court  building. 

Appropriation  of  $150,000  secured  for  a  new  children's  court 
building,  which  is  now  being  pushed. 

Public  bath  service  completely  reorganized,  the  force  of  at- 
tendants cut  about  40  per  cent,  and  the  buildings  put  in  better 
shape. 

Physical  examinations  made  by  experts  of  all  the  public  build- 
ings, with  a  view  towards  making  a  start  on  putting  them  all 
in  correct  condition. 

The  restoration  of  the  interior  of  the  City  Hall,  as  one  of  the 
architectural  monuments  of  the  city.  The  upper  southwest  wing, 
occupied  by  the  Borough  President's  office,  was  restored  in  con- 
formance  with  the  McComb  plans  at  the  relatively  slight  ex- 
pense of  $8,000,  covered  from  funds  saved  elsewhere. 

The  Bureau  of  Building  reorganized,  the  process  of  examin- 
ing plans  expedited,  and  an  advisory  committee  appointed  to  pre- 
pare desirable  amendments  to  the  building  code,  for  considera- 
tion during  the  coming  winter. 

The   significance   of  this   remarkable   record  of   achievement 
must  not  be  overlooked.    It  lies  not  only  in  the  fact  that  it  repre- 
sents  a  decrease   in   expenditures  and  an   in- 

"MakTn^Good"    crease  *n  efficiency,  but  over  and  above  that  it  is 
a  concrete  example  of  an  advocate  of  the  new 
municipal  idea  "  making  good  ". 

Prior  to  assuming  the  office  of  borough  president  George  Mc- 
Aneny  had  been  president  of  the  City  Club,  and  before  that  he 
had  been  secretary  of  the  civil  service  reform  association,  serv- 
ing for  a  while  as  secretary  to  the  city  civil-service  board  under 
Mayor  Low.  In  addition  to  this  he  had  been  identified  with 
many  of  the  progressive  movements  in  New  York,  either  as  a 
member  or  as  a  director  or  trustee.  In  his  service  as  borough 
president  he  has  given  a  splendid  demonstration  of  public  spirit 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  27 

and  efficient  service,  although  regarding  this  first  year  of  his 
term  as  merely  preparatory. 

In  addition  to  the  splendid  work  which  has  been  recounted,  Mr. 

McAneny  has  utilized  his  opportunity  for  introducing  a  large 

number  of  high-minded  young  men  into  the  public  service  of 

the  city.    Moreover  his  appointments  to  the  local 

school  board  represent  a  great  improvement 
Board  Reform  -  ° 

over  preceding  conditions.  It  had  been  the  cus- 
tom to  appoint  to  those  boards  persons  recommended  by  local 
political  leaders.  Mr.  McAneny,  however,  has  made  his  appoint- 
ments on  an  entirely  different  basis.  For  instance,  one  is  a  di- 
rector of  class  work  in  the  clubs  for  girls  in  the  Jacob  Riis 
House  Settlement.  Another  is  a  director  of  the  Downtown 
Ethical  Society.  Still  another  is  secretary  of  the  Parks  and  Play- 
grounds Association.  Another  is  an  associate  worker  at  the  Col- 
lege Settlement.  Another  is  head  of  the  Hartley  House  Settle- 
ment. Still  another  is  an  officer  of  the  Women's  Municipal 
League,  an  association  of  collegiate  alumnae.  All  were  recom- 
mended by  such  organizations  as  the  Public  Education  Associa- 
tion and  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research.  His  aim  has  been 
to  secure  the  services  of  those  who  knew  school  life. 

President  McAneny's  record  in  office  has  been  cited  not  only 
because  of  its  concrete  accomplishments,  not  only  because  it 
represents  an  advocate  of  the  new  municipal  idea  making  good, 
but  because  it  has  been  done  so  quietly  that  little  or  no  general 
attention  has  been  given  to  it.  It  deserves  a  place  alongside  of 
the  splendid  work  of  the  Board  of  Estimate  and  Apportionment 
of  which  he  is  a  vital  factor,  and  of  the  splendid  work  which 
Mayor  Gaynor  has  done  in  his  larger  office  as  chief  executive 
of  the  City  of  Greater  New  York. 

It  has  been  interesting  to  note  how  generally  Mayor  Gaynor's 
work  has  been  appreciated,  not  only  in  his  own  city  and  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  but  throughout  the  country. 
In  fact  his  administration  is  regarded  as  one  of 
the  important  municipal  events  and  achievements  of  the  past  year. 
So  much,  however,  has  been  said  in  public  prints  about  his  work 
that  little  remains  to  be  said  other  than  to  refer  to  it  in  conjunc- 
tion with  that  of  his  colleagues  in  the  Board  of  Estimate  and 


28  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

Apportionment.  Mayor  Gaynor  has  served  loyally  with  his  col- 
leagues who  were  elected  at  the  same  time,  although  on  a  differ- 
ent ticket,  and  who  represent,  as  he  has  come  to  represent,  the 
new  municipal  politics. 

A  word  in  passing  must  be  given  to  the  character  of  Mayor 
Gaynor's  appointments.  As  the  New  York  Times  pointed  out  at 
the  time  they  were  announced :  "  The  most  striking  feature  of  the 
appointments  made  by  Mayor  Gaynor  is  the  conspicuous  ab- 
sence of  the  controlling  influence  of  Tammany  in  their  selection. 
The  independence  of  the  Mayor  presents  to  his  appointees  an 
unusual  degree  of  principle  and  imposes  on  them  an  unusual  de- 
gree of  responsibility,"  a  responsibility  which  they  have  in  a 
great  majority  of  instances  fully  met.  Mayor  Gaynor  moreover 
has  proved  an  effective  factor  in  raising  municipal  government 
to  a  higher  plane  of  consideration.  He  has  lent  the  influence  and 
dignity  of  his  high  office  to  a  series  of  articles,  letters  and  pub- 
lished statements  which  have  put  the  municipal  problem  effect- 
ively before  great  masses  not  only  of  New-Yorkers  but  of  his 
fellow  countrymen  at  large.  His  guiding  policy  has  been,  as  he 
declared  in  his  Century  article  on  the  problem  of  efficient  city 
government:  to  get  men  who  are  honest — fanatically  honest,  if 
you  will — and  competent.  "  Only  the  union  of  these  two  quali- 
fications," he  maintains,  "  can  suffice ;  and  with 
ones  y  an  them  you  will  have  good  government  whether 

with  a  good  charter  or  a  poor  one,  one  is  al- 
most tempted  to  say  in  spite  of  bad  laws.  Such  an  official  will 
know  how  to  keep  within  the  laws,  which  should  be  the  first  and 
most  scrupulous  care  of  all  officials  in  a  free  government,  and  still 
fashion  and  turn  good  and  intelligent  purposes  to  them.  Such  an 
administration  lifts  government  up  and  makes  it  respectable, 
while  the  other  kind  degrades  and  corrupts  it  and  makes  it  con- 
temptible in  the  sight  of  all.  No  one  who  appreciates  this  can 
enter  upon  the  office  of  mayor  of  a  large  city  otherwise  than  in 
a  spirit  of  the  utmost  diffidence.  He  cannot  help  turning  for 
guidance  and  help  to  Him  who  helps  all  who  turn  to  Him  sin- 
cerely. I  feel  certain  that  the  able  men  who  are  my  associates 
in  the  government  of  the  city  of  New  York  are  all  of  this  same 
feeling." 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  29 

Progress  has  been  the  watchword  in  New  York,  just  as  it  has 
been  elsewhere.  As  The  Evening  Post  in  a  thoughtful  review  of 
the  municipal  situation  declared,  "  for  something 
like  half  a  century  the  defects  and  vices  of  our 
municipal  government  have  been  by  common  consent  one  of  the 
worst  exhibits  of  our  great  American  experiment  of  democracy, 
but,  to-day  there  is  no  standing  ground  for  such  a  view.  Substan- 
tial progress  towards  higher  standards  both  of  honesty  and  effi- 
ciency has  been  so  widespread  that  the  cities  which  have  no  such 
progress  to  record  are  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule.  Part  of 
this  progress  has  been  effected  simply  by  the  advance  of  public 
opinion,  but  a  much  greater  part  has  been  made  possible  by  the 
crystalization  of  public  opinion  in  the  shape  of  an  improved  or- 
ganization of  municipal  government." 

The  editor  of  the  Indianapolis  News  in  reporting  the  Cincin- 
nati meeting  of  the  National  Municipal  League  ran  the  account 
in  under  the  suggestive  title :  "  The  New  Poli- 
Tne  «ew  tics."  This  designation  happily  characterizes 

the  movement  for  which  the  National  Municipal 
League  has  been  steadily  working  from  the  beginning.  The 
records  of  President  McAneny  and  of  Mayor  Gaynor,  already 
referred  to,  and  the  other  municipal  developments  hereafter  to 
be  recounted,  are  all  illustrations  in  one  form  or  another  of  the 
new  municipal  idea  which  puts  the  emphasis  on  the  good  of  the 
city  rather  than  on  the  interests  of  a  party  or  a  candidate; 
which  requires  that  city  affairs  be  given  a  due  consideration  on 
their  merits  without  regard  to  irrelevant  questions  such  as  state 
or  national  politics ;  which  insists  upon  directness  of  nominations 
and  elections,  and  responsibility  after  elections;  which  demands 
simplicity  of  electoral  and  governmental  machinery,  the  short 
ballot,  and  responsiveness  to  the  public  will,  and  therefore  encour- 
ages easy  and  intelligent  voting;  which  checks  partisan  and  fac- 
tional nominations,  giving  the  voters  the  control  if  they  wish  to 
exercise  it;  which  through  publicity  insures  effective  public 
control ;  which  demands  that  efficiency  and  merit  shall  be  the  sole 
basis  of  all  appointments  in  a  democracy;  which  demands  con- 
centration of  authority  and  responsibility. 

Without   question   the  most  conspicuous   single  development 


30  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

during  the  past  year  in  the  realm  of  city  government  has  been  the 
continued,    rapid   and   wide-spread   interest   in. 

the  commission  form  of  municipal  government 
Government  .  .  ,  .  °r 

and  in  the  question  of  city  charter  reform  gen- 
erally. A  straight  commission  form  of  government,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  Dr.  C.  W.  Eliot,  one  of  the  most  active  advocates  of  the 
system,  requires  a  commission  composed  of  five  elected  members, 
one  of  whom  is  called  the  mayor,  acting  as  chairman  of  the  com- 
mission, but  with  no  veto  power,  or  any  other  special  power 
not  shared  by  the  other  members  of  the  commission.  The  com- 
mission so  elected  is  the  source  of  all  authority  in  the  city,  makfes 
all  ordinances,  appoints  all  officials,  collects  taxes,  and  makes 
all  appropriations.  As  set  forth  by  its  advocates,  the  significant 
features  of  the  plan,  in  addition  to  those  already  mentioned,  are : 
Assignment  of  the  important  divisions  of  the  city  government 
to  individual  members  of  the  commission,  each  of  whom  is  di- 
rectly responsible  for  the  conduct  of  his  particular  department; 
adequate  compensation  to  the  members  of  the  commission  for 
their  time  and  labor,  the  city  employing  all  the  commissioners  at 
living  salaries,  thus  elevating  the  dignity  of  municipal  service 
and  making  of  it  a  public  career,  and  not  a  mere  avocation;  regu- 
larity, frequency  and  publicity  of  the  meetings  of  the  commis- 
sioners ;  all  employees  above  the  class  of  day  laborers  selected, 
from  eligible  lists  based  on  examinations,  oral  and  written,  care- 
fully devised  to  develop  merit  and  fitness ;  recommendations  after 
examination  by  an  independent  civil  service  commission;1  pro- 
vision for  the  retention  in  office  of  all  employees  so  appointed 
during  good  behavior;  the  power  to  initiate  desired  legislation 
reserved  to  the  people,  this  right  being  known  as  the  initiative; 
the  power  to  call  for  a  public  vote  on  any  measure  adopted  byt 
the  commission  before  being  given  effect  as  law  reserved  to  the 
people,  this  being  known  as  the  referendum;  the  power  at  any 
time  to  make  any  member  of  the  commission  stand  for  re-elec- 
tion reserved  to  the  people,  this  being  known  as  the  recall;  the 

1  For  the  inadequacy  of  civil  service  provisions  in  some  of  the  commis- 
sion charters,  see  paper  of  Elliot  H.  Goodwin. 


31 

granting  of  public  franchises  always  to  be  submitted  to  the  ap- 
proval of  the  electors.1 

There  are  two  other  most  important  features :  the  introduction 
of  the  principle  of  the  short  ballot  and  the  elimination  of  ward 
lines.  In  the  matured  judgment  of  municipal  students  these  are 
considered,  together  with  the  concentration  of  authority,  as  the, 
most  effective  features  of  the  system. 

Some  idea  of  the  growth  of  the  commission  form  of  govern- 
ment may  be  measured  by  the  extent  of  its  adoption  within  the 
past  four  years.    Iowa,  Kansas,  North  Dakota, 
State  Com-  South   Dakota    Kentucky,   Mississippi,   Minne- 

mission  Laws  T11.     .       '.          .     i      .  .         0    \,    ~ 

sota,  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Louisiana,  South  Caro- 
lina and  Oklahoma  have  passed  laws  relating  to  all  or  certain 
classes  of  cities  within  their  respective  borders.2 

An  interesting  and  significant  development  of  the  commission 
movement  has  been  the  graphic  delineation  of  the  merits  of  the 
system  in  the  way  of  the  concentration  of  au- 
thority  and   responsibility.      For   instance,   the 
of  Advocacy 

Commission  Government  Association  of  Buffalo 

has  issued  two  charts,  one  entitled  "  the  people  do  not  rule  ". 
showing  how  the  powers  under  the  present  charter  of  Buffalo 
are  dispersed  among  bureaus  and  bodies,  none  of  which  is  di- 
rectly and  absolutely  responsible  to  the  electors;  the  other  under 
the  caption  of  "  the  people  rule,"  shows  how  the  voters  are  the 
source  of  first  and  final  authority  and  hold  within  their  hands 
the  complete  power,  not  only  over  the  personnel  of  the  govern- 
ment but  over  the  subject  matter  of  the  government.8 

1  See  analysis  prepared  by  the  Charleston,  S.  C,  Community  Club. 

2  A  list  of  the  cities  which  have  adopted  one  form  or  another  of  com- 
mission government  is  given  in  Dr.  E.  S.  Bradford's  paper. 

3  A  very  considerable  pamphlet  literature  has  been  published  during  the 
year,  the  more  important  being  "  The  Story  of  the  Short  Ballot  Cities " 
and  "  Commission  Government  in  Pennsylvania,"  and  a  very  considerable 
number  of  small  pamphlets  designed  to  put  the  issue  clearly  and  effec- 
tively before  the  electors  called  upon  to  express  an  opinion  on  the  sub- 
ject.   John  J.  Hamilton,  one  of  the  original  proponents  of  the  Des  Moines 
form  of  commission  government,  has  told  in  effective  fashion  in  his  book, 
"The  Dethronement  of  the  City  Boss,"  the  story  of  the  actual  operation 
of  the  Des  Moines  charter. 


32  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

A  number  of  cities  like  Buffalo,  New  York,  Mobile  and  Bir- 
mingham, Ala.,  have  through  a  vote  of  their  electors  expressed 
a  desire  for  commission  government,  but  so  far 
r  w  o  e  ^y  jiave  keen  Denied  their  request  by  the  state 
legislatures.  The  general  trend  of  the  more  im- 
portant cities  of  Massachusetts,  outside  of  Boston,  has  been 
toward  a  commission  form  of  government,  either  with  absolute 
powers  as  in  the  case  of  Galveston  or  subject  to  the  initiative, 
referendum  and  recall,  as  under  the  Des  Moines  plan.  In  New 
York  bills  providing  for  a  commission  form  of  government  in 
Mount  Vernon  and  Melzinga  were  passed  by  the  last  session  of 
the  legislature,  but  failed  for  reasons  which  did  not  involve  the 
merit  of  the  legislation.  Pennsylvania  has  a  full-fledged  move- 
ment for  the  establishment  of  the  system  in  the  third  class  cities 
of  that  state,  a  formal  organization  having  been  established  for 
the  purpose.  In  Virginia  a  similar  movement  is  on  foot,  having 
for  its  object  the  amendment  of  the  Virginia  Constitution,  to 
make  possible  the  establishment  of  the  commission  form  by  such 
cities  as  desire  to  have  it.  Efforts  are  pending  in  Georgia,  Ala- 
bama and  Tennessee  to  secure  the  enactment  of  state  laws.  There 
are  also  many  cities  now  considering  the  question  of  the  adop- 
tion of  some  form  of  commission  government,  either  in  the  way 
of  an  election  to  adopt  a  charter  under  existing  state  legislation 
or  to  secure  the  necessary  power  from  the  state  legislature. 

The  commission  form  of  government  is  still  too  new  in  its 
application  to  city  problems  to  enable  publicists  and  stu- 
dents to  speak  with  any  degree  of  finality  con- 
cerning its  merits.  That  it  possesses  many 
advantages  especially  in  the  direction  of  concentration  of  author- 
ity and  the  simplification  of  machinery  is  unquestioned.  That  it 
will  solve  off-hand  all  the  problems  to  which  a  municipality  is 
heir  is  absurd.  In  fact  the  movement  which  is  a  most  whole- 
some one  is  likely  to  suffer  in  the  near  future  unless  its  ad- 
vocates modify  their  claims.  Within  the  year  claims  have  been 
made  by  its  advocates  that  it  had  effectually  eliminated  the 
social  evil,  citing  the  closed-town  policy  of  Des  Moines.  As  a 
result  of  a  change  in  the  personnel  of  the  commission  of  that  city 
there  was  a  less  rigorous  enforcement  of  the  laws  dealing  with 


33 

this  subject,  and  as  a  result  the  enemies  of  the  system  heralded 
the  fact  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other  that  commis- 
sion government  had  broken  down  and  failed.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  both  claims  were  wrong.  The  merit  of  the  commission  form 
was  that  it  enabled  the  people  of  Des  Moines  to  establish,  with 
little  or  no  delay,  what  officials  were  responsible  for  the  changed 
condition  of  affairs,  and  through  the  exercise  of  public  sentiment 
to  bring  about  a  needed  enforcement  of  the  laws. 

It  is  equally  wrong  to  claim  that  the  system  is  a  panacea  for 
municipal  ills  or  to  brush  it  aside  as  a  passing  fancy.  It  con- 
tains many  meritorious  features  which  unquestionably  will  be- 
come established  features  of  municipal  government  and  its  ad- 
ministration, to  their  permanent  improvement. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  not  fair  to  regard  the  movement  for 
the  establishment  of  the  commission  form  of  government  in 
American  cities  as  a  passing  fad.  It  represents  a  deep-seated 
desire  on  the  part  of  the  American  people  to  set  their  municipal 
houses  in  order  and  simplify  their  governmental  machinery,  to 
concentrate  responsibility  and  to  establish  the  whole  municipal 
business  on  a  new,  firmer  and  more  substantial  basis. 

Wherever  charter  reform  has  been  an  issue  at  recent  elections 
the  progressive  elements  in  the  community  have  won  gratifying 
victories.  Boston,  for  instance,  after  a  vigorous  campaign  voted 
by  a  small  majority  last  December  in  favor  of  what  was  known 
as  plan  No.  2,  embodying  the  recommendations  of  the  original 
finance  commission.  Under  it  national  party  designations  on  the 
ballot  disappear  and  with  them  all  the  machinery  of  the  caucus, 
convention  and  primary,  which  have  hitherto  stood  between  the 
voter  and  his  final  choice  at  the  polls.1 

Charter  revision  continues  to  be  the  dominant  issue  in  New 
York  City.     Governor  Hughes  during  his  term  of  office  sought 
to  bring  about  a  complete  and  satisfactory  re- 
Dominance  of          j          f  th    charter  of  the  cit     steadfastly  set- 
Charter  Bevision   . 

ting  his  face  against  piece-meal  tinkering.    The 

Ivins  commission  appointed  by  him  did  what  many  regarded  as 
one  of  the  most  complete  and  systematic  pieces  of  work  ever 

1  For  further  discussion  of  the  several  features  of  the  two  plans  sub- 
mitted to  the  Boston  electors  see  Cincinnati  proceedings,  pages  87  to  90. 


34 


THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 


turned  out  by  a  charter  commission.  It  failed  of  endorsement  by 
the  legislature,  which  was  under  reactionary  influences.  That 
body  preferred  instead  to  appoint  a  committee  of  its  own  which 
considered  the  Ivins  report  and  expressed  its  agreement  with 
some  features  and  its  disagreement  with  others.  It  failed,  how- 
ever, to  grasp  the  fundamental  features  that  Mr.  Ivins  and  his 
colleagues  so  carefully  worked  out.  The  joint  committee  an- 
nounced that  it  could  not  accept  the  basic  principles  on  which  the 
Ivins  commission  charter  was  constructed,  although  it  adopted 
many  of  its  specific  suggestions.  While  it  did  not  like  the  plan 
of  enacting  separately  a  form  of  charter  and  an  administrative 
code  subject  to  revision  by  the  legislature,  it  took  a  number  of 
the  sections  which  the  commission  had  thought  were  appropriate 
for  the  administrative  code  and  put  them  in  a  code  of  ordinances 
to  be  subject  to  the  action  of  the  aldermen. 

Both  the  commission  and  the  joint  committee  were  in  accord 
on  the  advisability  of  distinguishing  the  disbursing  officials  from 

the  appropriating  ones,  but  the  legislative  corn- 
Greater  New  mittee  did  not  believe  in  the  proposed  stripping 

of  the  borough  presidents  of  many  of  their  pres- 
ent powers.  It  showed  its  reactionary  tendencies  in  criticizing 
the  centralization  of  administrative  powers  on  the  ground  that  as 
a  matter  of  fact  subordinate  officials  would  be  obliged  to  make 
decisions  of  great  importance.  To  this  the  Citizens'  Union  re- 
plied that  such  delegation  of  authority  to  subordinates  is  in- 
evitable in  all  large  institutions.  The  real  responsibility  still  lies 
with  those  men  who  select  and  appoint  the  subordinates.  Mr. 
Ivins'  commission  recommended  that  the  present  board  of  alder- 
men be  replaced  by  a  small,  unpaid  body,  but  the  legislative  com- 
mittee recommended  the  keeping  of  the  present  board  practi- 
cally unaltered.  The  board  of  estimates,  the  committee  held, 
should  have  certain  borough  members,  but  there  was  a  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  whether  these  should  be  elected  by  the  city  at 
large  or  one  from  each  borough.  There  was  no  substantial  dis- 
agreement between  the  charter  commission  and  the  joint  com- 
mittee on  a  number  of  important  matters,  including  the  discon- 
tinuance of  the  creation  of  sinking  funds  to  which  specific  revenues 
of  the  city  are  pledged,  and  the  requirement  of  a  strict  policy 


35 

of  requiring  all  expenditures  to  be  paid  annually  out  of  the 
budget  and  to  be  shown  in  the  budget.  They  were  also  of  one 
mind  on  the  advisability  of  putting  the  board  of  education  more 
directly  under  the  board  of  estimates,  and  of  abolishing  its  sepa- 
rate corporate  existence,  and  of  conferring  on  the  board  of  es- 
timates, subject  only  to  check  by  the  aldermen,  the  absolute 
control  of  all  salary  schedules  except  those  of  elective  officers. 

Sharply  commenting  on  the  way  in  which  it  had  been  sug- 
gested that  the  recommendation  by  the  joint  committee  should 
be  placed  on  the  statute  books,  the  Citizens'  Union  pointed  out 
that  a  little  more  than  a  month  before  the  last  session  ended  the 
joint  committee  introduced  no  less  than  26  bills  containing  its 
proposals.  They  had  been  drafted  hastily  and  were  full  of  serious 
errors.  Fortunately  the  Citizens'  Union  was  able  to  arouse 
public  attention  and  succeeded  in  defeating  this  revival  of  the 
piece-meal  method.  What  the  legislative  committee,  which  was 
continued  for  another  year,  will  finally  report  has  not  yet  been 
disclosed. 

St.  Paul's  (Minnesota)  charter  commission  in  the  latter  part 

of  1909  had  under  consideration  a  plan  of  city  government  that 

contained  a  number  of  interesting  features.  The 

ine  rropofied.  bt.    pr0pOnen(;S  of  fa[s  p]an  contended  that  in  great 

measure  it  obviated  the  criticisms  that  have  gen- 
erally been  levelled  at  the  commission  form  of  government.  In 
the  first  place  it  eliminated  the  municipal  court  from  the  scheme 
of  city  government.  This  it  did  not  only  because  the  provisions 
of  the  Minnesota  constitution  forbade,  but  because  the  authors 
of  the  plan  felt  that  the  judiciary  should  be  separated  from  city 
government,  or  at  least  that  the  judges  should  be  directly  elected 
by  the  people  instead  of  appointed  by  the  commission.  The  new 
features  of  the  proposed  St.  Paul  plan  were  as  follows: 

A  small  common  council  to  be  composed  of  the  commissioners, 
four  councilmen  elected  for  a  term  of  four  years,  and  the  city 
comptroller.  The  reasons  urged  for  this  were,  first,  it  created 
an  appropriating  body  larger  than  the  commission  itself;  sec- 
ondly, the  four  councilmen  were  to  be  made  county  commis- 
sioners of  the  county  of  Ramsey  in  which  St.  Paul  is  located, 
thus  uniting  in  a  way  county  and  city.  Incidentally,  St.  Paul 
pays  97  per  cent  of  the  county  taxes. 


36  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

Another  novelty  was  the  creation  of  two  boards  of  aldermen, 
one  a  general  board  composed  of  all  the  aldermen  elected,  one 
from  each  precinct  of  which  there  are  120.  This  general  board, 
which  was  to  meet  quarterly,  was  to  be  entrusted  with  the  duty 
of  periodicaly  inspecting  every  department  of  the  city  govern- 
ment, and  reporting  its  findings  and  conclusions  to  the  commis- 
sion, together  with  suggestions  and  recommendations  for  a  more 
efficient,  economical  and  better  conduct  of  the  city  government 
and  its  policies.  Moreover  this  general  board  of  aldermen  might 
suspend  any  elective  or  appointive  officer  for  a  period  of  30 
days.  Its  principal  function,  however,  was  in  connection  with 
the  budget.  After  the  budget  was  passed  by  the  common 
council  the  same  was  to  have  been  submitted  to  the  general 
board  for  approval  and  adoption  at  a  special  meeting  called  for 
that  purpose.  The  board  might  decrease  or  reject  any  item  of 
the  budget,  but  it  could  not  increase  or  reapportion  the  same. 
Moreover  it  is  charged  with  the  approval  of  new  franchises  and 
the  modification  or  extension  of  existing  franchises. 

The  aldermen  elected  from  the  various  precincts  might  also 
serve  in  their  respective  wards  as  a  ward  board  with  merely 
critical  and  recommendatory  powers.  At  the  deliberations  of  this 
ward  board  citizens  might  be  present  and  participate  in  the  debate, 
but  without  a  vote.  This  idea  was  partly  taken  from  the  New- 
port plan.  The  end  in  view  was  that  of  creating  a  large  body  of 
men  who  would  take  an  active  interest  in  municipal  affairs  by 
reason  of  their  participation.  It  was  also  expected  to  afford 
a  field  for  ambitious  men  to  fit  themselves  for  election  to  the  com- 
mission. Another  feature  of  the  plan  was  the  provision  for 
election  by  the  voters  at  large  of  the  comptroller.  Under  most 
commission  forms  he  is  appointed  by  the  commission.  This  pro- 
vision was  to  answer  the  objection  of  having  the  auditing  officer 
dependent  on  those  whose  accounts  he  audited. 

Pittsburgh  for  years  has  been  studying  itself,  or  at  least  some 

of  its  most  public-spirited  men  have.     It  has  had  a  series  of 

charters,  each  an  improvement  over  the  former. 

urgn  s    lan  jt  ^as  experimente(i  wjth  commissions  in  charge 

of  municipal    improvements  and  management.     It  has  had  gov- 
ernment by  the  council  with  the  mayor  as  a  figurehead.    Now  it 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  37 

possesses  a  mayor  who  as  chief  executive  is  supreme,  and  with 
this  Pittsburgh  seems  to  be  satisfied,  but  it  has  found  its  two 
chambers  of  councils  with  ward  representation  productive  only 
of  bad  government.  There  is  therefore  a  strong  demand  that 
the  councilmanic  and  ward  system  of  representation  be  re- 
formed. This  idea  was  prominently  in  view  when  48  of  its 
councilmen  were  indicted  for  bribery.  Within  a  week  after  the 
final  exposure  5,000  of  its  citizens  met  and  appointed  a  com- 
mittee in  the  interest  of  charter  legislation.  This  committee  has 
completed  its  work  and  its  plan  has  been  approved  by  the  com- 
mercial and  civic  bodies  of  the  city. 

Here  is  the  new  Pittsburgh  plan:  The  mayor  and  his  duties 
and  powers  are  to  remain  unchanged,  the  mayor  retaining  his 
supreme  administrative  authority.  He  now  appoints  and  can 
remove  the  heads  of  every  department  with  the  exception  of 
the  comptroller,  which  office  is  elective.  He  is  personally  respon- 
sible for  the  administration  of  every  department  of  the  city  gov- 
ernment. Pittsburgh  has  not  always  been  satisfied  with  its 
mayor  by  any  means,  but  it  has  never  charged  his  personal  short- 
comings to  the  charter.  It  is  with  the  legislative  branch  of  the 
government  that  the  plan  chiefly  deals  and  the  changes  proposed 
are  radical.  Instead  of  two  chambers  of  council,  one  with  27 
and  the  other  with  40  members  as  at  present,  a  single  body  of 
nine  members  is  proposed.  The  councilmen  are  to  be  elected  by 
the  city  at  large  for  a  term  of  four  years,  five  at  one  biennial 
election  and  four  at  another.  They  are  to  receive  a  salary  of 
$6,500  annually.  A  referendum  is  possible  on  all  ordinances 
upon  petition  of  10  per  cent  of  the  voters  at  the  last  municipal 
election  and  the  initiative  is  to  be  granted  on  the  petition  of  15 
per  cent  of  the  voters.  Nominations  of  all  city  officers  are  to  be 
made  by  petition  of  5  per  cent  of  the  voters.  The  ballot  is  to  be 
non-partisan,  without  party  names  or  symbols,  and  the  recall  may 
be  demanded  upon  a  petition  of  25  per  cent  of  the  voters. 

For  upward  of  a  year  West  Virginia  has  had  a  municipal  code 

commission  at  work.     In  its  recently-published 

P  j!s  report   provision    is   made    for   a   considerable 

measure   of    local   autonomy.     The   governing 

bodies  may  be  elected  upon  purely  political  lines,  or  there  may  be 


38  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

non-partisan  government,  bi-partisan  government,  administrations 
under  the  immediate  control  of  one  man  or  directed  by  a  com- 
mission, this  question  being  under  the  immediate  control,  as  it 
should  be,  of  the  voters  of  the  municipality.  The  present  gov- 
erning body  of  any  municipality  has  the  right  under  the  pro- 
posed law  to  name  a  charter  commission,  who  in  turn  submit  to 
the  direct  vote  of  the  people  either  of  the  various  forms  of  gov- 
ernment above  outlined.  The  functions  of  the  governing  bodies, 
however,  are  definitely  determined.  The  method  of  taxation, 
the  granting  of  franchises,  ordinances,  elections,  registration, 
duties  of  officers  in  the  collection  and  disbursement  of  the  funds 
of  the  municipality  are  all  definitely  fixed  by  the  proposed  law 
and  cannot  be  changed,  being  incorporated  in  the  general  law 
delegating  authority  to  all  municipal  governing  bodies.  Gen- 
erally speaking,  the  proposed  code  increases  the  charter  powers 
of  a  city,  centralizing  power  and  responsibility,  and  reduces 
the  number  of  elective  officers. 

San  Francisco  is  considering  the  question  of  charter  reform. 
A  very  considerable  number  of  amendments  were  submitted  at 
the  November  election,  some  of  which  are  worth 
an  C1SCO  more  than  passing  notice.  One  proposed  a  non- 
partisan  ballot  with  a  rotation  of  names  on  the 
ballot,  so  that  no  one  man  shall  have  an  advantage  by  reason 
of  his  name  beginning  by  a  letter  higher  up  in  the  alphabet  than 
another.  One  provided  that  those  petitioning  for  the  adop- 
tion of  an  ordinance  under  the  initiative  must  submit  an  argu- 
ment not  exceeding  a  prescribed  number  of  words  in  favor  of 
the  proposed  legislation.  Those  against  the  proposition  must 
submit  opposing  arguments,  and  both  arguments  shall  be  mailed 
to  the  voters  by  the  proper  officers  as  official  documents.  Simi- 
larly on  the  recall  election  it  was  suggested  that  those  demanding 
an  official's  recall  should  submit  reasons  not  exceeding  300  words 
in  length  to  be  printed  on  the  sample  ballot,  on  which  in  the  same 
manner  the  official  sought  to  be  recalled  may  justify  his  course. 

Another  proposed  amendment  requires  candidates  to  furnish 
a  statement  under  oath  giving  information  as  to  their  previous 
experience  and  qualifications  for  filling  the  office.  A  fee  of  $20 
is  to  be  charged  for  the  first  one  hundred  words  and  $10  for 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  39 

«ach  additional  100  words.  This  statement  shall  then  be  printed 
as  a  public  document.  There  is  a  general  consensus  of  opinion 
among  those  who  have  offered  suggestions  that  the  ward  system 
of  election  should  be  abolished.  In  fact  there  seems  to  be  a  gen- 
eral conviction  that  a  councilman  elected  from  a  single  ward  is 
from  the  start  a  handicapped  public  official.  Ward  lines  create 
factions,  breed  contention  and  promote  log-rolling.  The  San 
Francisco  commission  has  also  under  consideration  the  adoption 
of  the  Berkeley  system  of  election.1 

Fundamentally  the  most  important  development  in  chartef  re- 
form is  the  growth  of  public  sentiment  in  behalf  of  municipal 
home  rule.2    A  significant  event  of  the  past  year 
B  was  the  large  measure  of  attention  given  to  the 
subject  of  municipal  home  rule  by  the  League 
of  American  Municipalities  at  its  meeting  in  St.  Paul.    The  mayor 
of  Baltimore  (the  Hon.  J.  Barry  Mahool)  in  a  thoughtful  paper 
in  which  it  may  be  mentioned  in  passing  he  quoted  at  considerable 
length  from  the  proceedings  of  the  National  Municipal  League, 
and  in  which  he  endorsed  the  principles  of  the  league's  municipal 
program,  declared  that  even   if  the  legislature 

"  were  always  wise  and  always  honest  their  interference  in  local 
affairs  would  be  undesirable.  The  representatives  are  state  offi- 
cers, elected  to  look  after  matters  of  general,  not  local,  concern. 
They  are  not  familiar  with  city  conditions  and  can  have  no  defi- 
nite idea  of  its  needs.  Furthermore  sufficient  publicity  of  pro- 
posed measures  is  not  secured,  and  the  people  to  be  affected  have 
very  little  opportunity  of  enlightening  the  law-makers.  The  lobby- 
ist may  secure  the  passage  of  his  measure  before  effective  opposi- 
tion in  the  distant  city  can  materialize,  and  most  serious  of  all, 
the  legislator  is  not  responsible  for  his  action  to  those  who  are 
governed  by  his  measure.  He  is  under  no  obligation  to  the  city 
and  does  not  depend  upon  it  for  his  political  future.  In  such  an 

1  See  Cincinnati  proceedings,  pages  98  and  99. 

2  As  Dr.  Fairlie  pointed  out  at  the  Pittsburg  meeting  of  the  League, 
the  principle  of  home  rule  has  come  to  be  generally  recognized,  even  in 
special  legislation.    Much  of  this  legislation  has  been  enacted  as  the  result 
of  local  initiative,  and  sometimes  as  the  outcome  of  organized  action  in 
the  local  community. 


40  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

attitude  no  man,  however  patriotic,  can  exercise  that  enthusiastic 
solicitude  for  the  city's  welfare  which  its  interests  imperatively 
demand.  The  nation  has  the  right  of  independent  initiative  in 
national  affairs,  the  state  in  state  affairs,  the  individual  in  indi- 
vidual affairs,  but  the  municipality  must  have  permission  from 
the  legislature  for  everything  it  does." 

In  many  places  the  commission  form  of  government  is  en- 
acted as  a  result  of  home  rule  provisions  in  the  legislative  enact- 
ment or  in  the  state  constitution.  In  fact  the  movement  for  the 
commission  form  of  government  seems  to  be  in  the  direction  of 
passing  a  general  law  the  provisions  of  which  may  be  availed  of 
by  any  city  in  the  state  upon  an  affirmative  vote  of  its  electors. 
There  is  doubt  of  the  constitutionality  of  such  amendments  in 
a  few  states  like  Pennsylvania,  for  instance ;  but  even  there  there 
are  not  wanting  those  well  versed  in  the  law  who  maintain  that 
such  home  rule  provisions  are  not  contrary  to  the  requirements 
of  the  fundamental  law  of  the  state. 

As  a  result  of  the  discussion  at  the  St.  Paul  meeting  of  the 
League  of  American  Municipalities  that  organization  unani- 
mously adopted  the  following  resolution: 

"  Resolved,  That  the  League  of  American  Municipalities  re- 
affirms its  firm  belief  in  the  principle  of  municipal  home  rule, 
as  being  the  one  absolutely  vital  measure  needful  for  the  pros- 
perity, progress  and  moral  well-being  of  the  American  city,  and 
to  remove  from  it  such  reproach  as  now  clings  to  it;  and  be  it 
further 

"  Resolved,  That  this  League,  speaking  in  the  name  of  cities  ex- 
tending from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  from  Hudson  Bay 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  respectfully  but  earnestly  protests  to  the 
legislatures  of  such  states  and  provinces  as  are  concerned,  against 
the  denial  of  a  right,  which  is  fully  conferred  upon  business  cor- 
porations, and  the  perpetuation  of  a  system  that  throttles  prog- 
ress, stifles  aspiration  and  encourages  political  corruption  and 
brigandage." 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  encouragement  that  the  elected  officials 
of  our  cities  are  manifesting  so  intelligent  and  so  keen  an  interest 
in  establishing  self-government  in  American  municipalities! 

Many  present-day  municipal  abuses  have  grown  up  and  flour- 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  41 

ished  like  the  green  bay  tree,  not  because  of  criminal  intent,  but 
because   of   lax  methods   and   legislation.     To 
Municipal  meet  •     t  ^    situation,  to  introduce  intelligent 

Research 

order  and  supervision  into  the  conduct  of  muni- 
cipal affairs,  to  promote  knowledge,  system  and  efficiency  in 
public  business,  has  been  the  aim  of  the  bureaus  of  municipal 
research,  the  first  of  which  was  established  in  New  York  in 
1906.  As  Judge  M.  N.  A.  Walker,  of  Indianapolis,  pointed  out 
in  a  recent  address,  the  modern  business  man  is  familiar  with 
the  new  system  of  corporate  auditing.  He  realizes  the  immense 
value  and  advantage  of  the  employment  of  experts  to  audit  the 
accounts  of  his  concern,  experts  who  can  suggest  plans  that  will 
result  in  more  economical  buying,  greater  care  in  employment  and 
a  more  perfect  system  of  organization.  The  present-day  corpora- 
tion and  present-day  business  men  have  learned  the  value  of  the 
audit  and  of  the  auditing  company.  They  know  by  experience 
that  the  auditing  company  will  discover  for  them  the  leaks  in 
their  business,  weak  spots  in  their  system,  and  will  show  them 
where  they  can  buy  better  and  sell  better.  "  The  bureau  of 
municipal  research  is  only  another  name  for  the  civic  auditing 
company,  a  company  of  financial  experts  who  make  it  their  busi- 
ness to  know  how  to  conduct  other  men's  business."  So  suc- 
cessful have  been  the  methods  followed  by  the  New  York  Bureau 
of  Municipal  Research  that  similar  bureaus  have  been  estab- 
lished in  other  cities,  as  follows:  Philadelphia,  1908;  Cincin- 
nati, 1909;  Memphis,  1909;  Hoboken,  1910;  Boston,  1910;  Chi- 
cago, 1910;  Milwaukee,  1910;  St.  Paul,  1910;  Minneapolis,  1910. 
Their  introduction  has  resulted  in  the  saving  of  considerable 
sums  of  money  to  the  city  in  the  annual  budget  as  well  as 
greater  efficiency  in  all  the  departments  of  the  city  government, 
and  in  New  York  in  the  formulation  and  adoption  of  an  intelli- 
gent and  intelligible  municipal  budget. 

In   1909  the  New  York  Bureau  gave  a  budget  exhibit  as  a 

matter  of  public  enterprise  and  instruction.     It  was  a  piece  of 

propaganda  work  and   proved   so   helpful  and 

•D6      +°T>  vv*      so  successful  that  the  city's  board  of  estimate 

.Budget  Exhibit  .  «•• .  *  /. 

and  apportionment  officially  secured  $25,000  of 

the    city's  money  with  which  to  give  a  public  budget  exhibit  in 


42  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

1909.  In  May  last  it  adopted  a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  the 
heads  of  the  several  departments,  boards  and  commissions  of 
the  city  be  directed  to  submit  in  connection  with  the  budgetary 
estimate  for  the  year  1911 — in  addition  to  the  information  pre- 
scribed by  the  comptroller — such  charts,  diagrams,  and  photo- 
graphic representations  as  would  serve  the  purpose  of  appropriate 
illustrations  of  budget  requisites,  as  well  as  their  relation  to  per- 
manent city  improvements,  either  in  progress  or  projected. 

In  this  way  New  York  has  established  a  precedent  in  getting 
closer  than  any  other  city  in  America  to  a  working  ideal  of 
municipal  administration,  where  unit  cost  can 
Budget  Making  be  determjned  and  jts  reasonableness  intelli- 
gently considered.  With  this  information  in  hand  budget-making 
need  no  longer  be  mere  guessing  as  is  at  present  the  case  in  a 
vast  majority  of  cities.  The  officer  making  an  appropriation  must 
show  not  only  how  much  he  spent  in  the  past  year,  what  he  spent 
it  for  and  what  he  accomplished  by  the  expenditure,  but  he  must 
show  just  what  he  intends  to  accomplish  in  the  course  of  the 
coming  year,  how  he  intends  to  accomplish  it,  why  the  proposed 
work  is  necessary,  and  just  what  it  will  cost.  All  of  this  is  im- 
portant, but  still  more  important  is  the  fact  that  the  exhibit  put 
this  information  in  such  graphic  and  practical  form  that  the 
public  could  readily  see  and  understand  and  reach  a  conclu- 
sion whether  they  were  getting  their  money's  worth,  and  if  not 
who  was  responsible  for  the  failure.  As  Municipal  Facts  pointed 
out,  never  in  New  York's  history  has  there  been  an  administration 
like  the  present  one.  "  Never  was  there  such  a  board  of  esti- 
mates. In  one  and  the  same  breath  it  shows  the  tax  payers  how 
their  money  is  being  spent  and  tells  the  department  heads  not  to 
spend  so  much  of  it." 

The  New  York  organization  is  a  voluntary  affair  of  private 
citizens,  who  felt  that  the  city's  business  was  not  always  con- 
ducted in  a  business-like  way,  who  gave  their  money,  their  experi- 
ence and  their  time  to  the  work  they  set  themselves  to  do.  Be- 
yond mere  researching  they  offer  suggestion,  help  and  co-opera- 
tion to  department  heads  who  want  it,  or  appear  on  investigation 
to  need  it.  The  cost  of  all  this,  calculated  in  terms  of  money 
expended  alone,  has  been  $100,000  a  year,  but  the  results  have 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  43 

been  worth  so  many  times  that  sum  that  the  citizens  of  other 
places  have  been  moving  to  imitate  their  example.  Boston's 
bureau  is  quite  different.  It  is  well  known,  according  to  the 
Boston  Common,  that  the  old  Finance  Commission  had  no  use 
for  the  New  York  idea.  It  apparently  believed  that  it  had  in 
itself  all  that  was  necessary  for  municipal  research.  Some  time 

ago  Mayor  Fitzgerald  put  up  a  plan  for  a  bu- 
Boston  Municipal  feau  and  the  commission  killed  it;  but  the  com. 

Research  .    .  .. '  .         , , 

mission  evidently  saw  after  a  while  that  it  could 

make  the  bureau  an  adjunct  to  itself,  so  to  speak.  It  would  have 
the  means  of  getting  done  some  of  its  own  work  which  was  not 
being  performed,  or  was  being  performed  with  difficulty,  so  in 
the  end  the  city  council  was  moved  to  appropriate  $10,000,  which 
the  commission  divided  equally  into  two  annual  salaries  leaving 
nothing  but  the  hope  of  further  appropriations  or  its  own  appro- 
priations from  which  to  provide  expert  or  clerical  help.  That  is 
one  reason  doubtless  why  a  part  of  the  Boston  public  is  in- 
clined to  regard  the  appointment  of  the  new  bureau  as  simply  an 
addition  of  two  paid  members  to  the  finance  commission.  As 
sensed  by  the  commission,  Boston's  real  need  is  not  so  much  of 
accountants  as  of  men  who  can  direct  accountants  if  it  becomes 
necessary  to  employ  them ;  not  of  men  skilled  in  working-out  unit 
cost  systems  so  much  as  of  a  man  who  can  see  through  all  the 
peculiarities  of  concealing  systems,  of  a  man  who  finally  can  read 
department  reports  and  make  sane  and  logical  comments  on  them. 
Through  the  initiative  of  the  City  Club,  Chicago  has  secured 
a  bureau  of  public  efficiency.  It  is  an  unofficial  organization 
supported  by  private  citizens  to  scrutinize  the 
fEffi^'08  UrC  l  svstems  °f  accounting  in  the  eight  local  depart- 
ments of  Chicago,  to  examine  the  methods  of 
purchasing  materials  and  supplies  and  letting  and  executing  con- 
tracts in  these  bodies,  to  examine  the  pay-rolls  of  these  local 
bodies  with  a  view  of  determining  the  efficiency  of  such  expendi- 
tures, to  make  constructive  suggestions  for  improvements  in  the 
directions  indicated,  and  to  co-operate  with  public  officials  in  the 
installation  of  these  improved  methods,  to  furnish  the  public  with 
exact  information  regarding  public  revenues  and  expenditure, 
and  thereby  promote  efficiency  and  economy  in  the  public  service. 


44  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

During  the  past  year  the  Merriam  Commission  on  city  ex- 
penditures has  been  conducting  an  investigation  into  the  finances 
of  the  city  government,  and  within  a  few  months 

it  is  expected  will  have  covered  this  field  in  a 
Commission 

general  way.    As  this  committee  wul  go  out  of 

existence  as  soon  as  its  final  report  is  made,  it  was  plainly  evi- 
dent that  much  of  the  value  of  its  work  would  be  lost  unless 
some  means  of  following  up  its  recommendations  effectively  was 
devised.  In  fact  the  usefulness  of  any  such  work  of  investiga- 
tion is,  as  the  Chicago  City  Club  pointed  out,  directly  in  propor- 
tion to  the  persistency  with  which  it  is  prosecuted.  Efficiency 
and  economy  cannot  be  established  in  the  public  service  as  the 
result  of  any  one  effort,  but  only  by  continuous  attention.  More- 
over only  a  part  of  the  local  field  has  been  covered.  Similar 
work  should  be  done  for  and  by  the  other  local  governing  bodies, 
including  Cook  County,  the  Sanitary  District,  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, the  Public  Library  board  and  the  park  boards. 

St.  Paul's  Municipal  Research  Commission  not  only  is  in- 
vestigating the  various  methods  pursued  by  the  city  government, 
but  is  devoting  itself  to  the  consideration  of  complaints  and 
"kicks"  of  all  kinds.  In  fact  the  commission  holds  regular  public 
meetings  for  this  purpose.  The  school  board  has  put  up  to  it  the 
investigation  of  the  school  text-books  situation  because  of  the 
embroglio  in  the  school  board  on  this  subject.  The  mayor  is 
desirous  of  having  it  investigate  the  board  of  water  commis- 
sioners, who  are  regarded  as  extravagant  in  their  expenditures. 
The  comptroller  wants  assistance  in  budget  making,  and  the  com- 
mission will  help  make  a  new  budget  for  the  year  1911.  The 
departments  of  the  city  are  very  willing  to  lend  assistance,  and 
no  stumbling  block  has  been  put  in  the  way  of  the  officials  of  the 
commission.  Its  co-operation  in  bringing  about  a  better  system 
of  affairs  has  been  sought  by  practically  all  the  public  officials 
of  the  city  in  some  form  or  another. 

As  a  result  of  the  work  which  the  National  Municipal  League 
has  been  doing  for  the  past  decade  in  behalf  of  uniform  ac- 
counting and  reports,  there  has  developed  a  public  sentiment  in 
favor  of  uniform  city  budgets  and  bill  sheets,  which  is  now  re- 
ceiving attention  at  the  hands  of  a  committee  of  the  League. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  45 

This  movement  has  been  not  only  accelerated  but  in  considerable 
measure  shaped  and  developed  by  the  growth  of  the  municipal 
research  idea.  A  significant  event  of  the  past  year  has  been  the 
establishment  by  former  Comptroller  Metz,  of  New  York,  of  a 
fund  of  $10,000  a  year  for  three  years  to  make 
Uniform  available  to  American  cities  the  best  principles 

and  practice  worked  out  in  municipal  account- 
Accounting  .          T       .  T 

ing  and  reporting.     In  his  letter  to  the   JNew 

York  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research,  making  known  his  inten- 
tions in  the  matter,  Mr.  Metz  said: 

"  During  my  present  European  trip  I  have  been  impressed  by 
the  fact  that,  in  Germany  especially,  the  uniformity  of  accounting 
methods  among  the  larger  cities  gives  a  much  better  basis  for 
comparison  as  to  cost  of  administration,  maintenance,  etc.,  than 
we  have  at  home.  As  even  under  our  various  systems  of  admin- 
istration of  municipal  affairs,  all  our  cities  are  dependent  upon 
their  ability  to  float  their  bonds,  and  apparently  in  ever-increas- 
ing amounts,  it  would  seem  only  natural  that  bond  buyers  should 
have  a  means  of  ascertaining  what  financial  and  accounting 
methods  are  in  force  in  the  respective  cities  and  be  able  to  make 
comparison  as  to  credit  ability,  based  on  something  more  than  a 
general  legal  provision  as  to  borrowing  capacity. 

"  I  am  writing  you  therefore  to  ask  your  personal  and  official 
co-operation  in  some  educational  work  in  which  we  both  have 
an  interest,  and  to  apprise  you  of  my  purpose  to  provide  a  fund 
of  $10,000  a  year  for  three  years  to  make  available  to  American 
cities  the  best  principles  and  practices  worked  out  in  municipal 
accounting  and  reporting. 

"  The  fund  is  to  be  administered  by  the  directors  of  the  New 
York  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research.  But  having  in  mind  its 
national  application  through  the  co-operation  of 
Mr.  Metz's  Offer  various  comptrollers.  I  am  keeping  it  as  a 
separate  fund.  While  it  is  obvious  that  the 
$10,000  will  not  reorganize  the  accounts  of  all  American 
cities,  it  should,  however,  be  sufficient  to  make  available  to  all 
cities  the  results  of  the  experience  which  is  being  acquired  in 
each.  For  example,  New  York  City  has  spent  for  the  last  sev- 
eral years  past,  thousands  of  dollars  in  working  out  principles 
and  in  demonstrating  the  practical  application  of  accounting 
methods  to  municipal  business.  A  good  deal  of  progress  was 
made  during  my  administration  as  comptroller,  and  I  am  glad  to 
see  that  my  successor  in  office  is  continuing  the  work  which 


46  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

began  under  me.  Every  city  in  America  should  have  the  benefit 
of  the  work  which  is  now  being  effectively  carried  on,  and  New 
York  should  have  the  benefit  of  the  experience  of  your  city  and 
of  other  cities. 

"  City  comptrollers,  as  you  know,  continually  receive  letters 
of  inquiry,  requesting  just  the  kind  of  information  which  I  have 
in  mind  to  acquire  and  circulate  through  such  an  agency.  Only 
to-day  I  received,  through  my  New  York  office,  an  inquiry  from 
the  deputy  comptroller  of  Milwaukee  asking  for  information  as 
to  the  changes  made  in  New  York  methods  and  as  to  what  legis- 
lation, if  any,  had  been  necessary  to  bring  about  the  improve- 
ments. To-day  it  is  nobody's  business,  and  nobody  has  either  the 
fund  or  organization  to  give  the  kind  of  answer  that  ought  to 
be  given  when  one  comptroller  writes  to  another  comptroller  for 
information. 

"  I  might  cite  a  personal  experience  which  illustrates  the  diffi- 
culty which  I  have  in  mind:  An  inquiry  recently  made  by  the 
Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  for  Comptroller  Prendergast 
showed  that  my  own  records  of  what  the  bookkeepers  were 
doing  in  my  personal  business  establishment,  and  the  records  of 
what  the  bookkeepers  in  the  comptroller's  office  were  doing,  were 
widely  divergent;  that  bookkeepers  were  doing  five  times  as 
much  work  for  me  every  day  as  an  employer  as  they  did  for  me 
as  comptroller  and  did  not  complain  of  being  over-worked  at 
that.  As  every  business  man  knows,  the  quantity  of  work  per- 
formed by  his  employees  is  largely  determined  by  the  methods 
and  conditions  under  which  their  work  is  done.  The  point  is, 
that  the  only  way  to  correct  such  discrepancies  is  to  provide 
cities  with  business-like  methods  of  accounting  and  reporting 
that  will  keep  the  facts  before  the  officers  and  the  people  who 
elect  them,  and  do  it  by  up-to-date  and  easily  understood  bal- 
ance sheets  and  statements." 

Accompanying  the  development  of  the  idea  of  municipal  re- 
search and  coincident  with  it,  has  been  the  growth  of  the  demand 
for  municipal  reference  bureaus. 

The  constitutions  of  75  per  cent  of  the  states  require  the  uni- 
form taxation  of  all  property  under  what  is  known  as  the  general 
property  tax  system.  American  cities  have  practically  no  latitude 
given  them  by  their  state  governments  in  the  matter  of  taxation. 
Few  statute  laws  have  been  passed  during  the  year  touching 
upon  the  matter  of  municipal  taxation.  A  most  significant  oc- 
currence, however,  was  the  introduction  into  the  New  York 


47 

legislature  of  a  bill  asked  for  by  Mayor  Gaynor's  administra- 
tion and  the  New  York  Merchants'  Association,  to  exempt  per- 
sonal property  in  the  City  of  New  York  from  taxation.  Although 
the  request  was  denied,  the  action  of  the  mayor  and  of  the  As- 
sociation was  generally  regarded  as  an  official  recognition  of  the 
breakdown  of  the  idea  of  local  taxation  of  personal  property. 

The  most  noteworthy  changes  in  municipal  taxation  are  oc- 
curring in  Canada,  where  in  several  provinces  cities  have  been 
granted  a  large  measure  of  home  rule.  In 
Home  u  e  in  British  Columbia  a  general  statute  has  for  years 
permitted  municipalities  to  assess  improvements 
at  a  lower  percentage  than  land.  A  recent  statute  fixed  a  maxi- 
mum assessment  of  50  per  cent  for  improvements,  while  allowing 
a  lower  rate  or  an  entire  exemption  by  vote  of  the  local  council. 

Vancouver,  in  March,  1910,  exempted  improvements  entirely, 
while  assessing  lands  at  100  per  cent  of  its  value.  This  followed 
a  progressive  reduction  of  assessments  on  improvements  extend- 
ing over  some  years,  beginning  at  a  75  per  cent  assessment,  then 
50  per  cent,  then  25  per  cent.  Several  other  cities  in  British 
Columbia  have  also  gradually  reduced  the  percentage,  while  they 
now  exempt  improvements  entirely.  The  abolition  of  taxes  on 
improvements  in  Vancouver  has  caused  great  activity  in  local 
building  operations.  On  the  other  hand,  there  has  been  stagna- 
tion in  the  real-estate  market  so  far  as  vacant  lots  are  con- 
cerned. The  experiment  has  not  gone  on  long  enough  to  be  sure 
that  this  may  not  be  due  to  some  local  or  temporary  cause,  but  it 
is  the  result  that  tax  reformers  expect  from  the  policy  adopted. 
This  policy  has  prevailed  among  the  municipalities  of  the  Cana- 
dian West  to  value  sites  at  par  and  improvements  at  a  fraction 
ranging  from  75  per  cent  down  to  25  per  cent.  For  some  years 
Vancouver  assessed  them  at  75,  then  dropped  to  50,  then  to  25, 
and  last  March  to  zero. 

In  the  Province  of  Alberta  the  larger  cities  have  for  some 
years  exempted  improvements,  raising  their  revenues  chiefly  from 
a  tax  on  land  values  with  a  slight  business  tax  and  a  tax  on 
franchises  of  public-service  corporations  when  these  are  not 
municipally  owned.  Most  of  the  new  villages  asking  for  incor- 
poration are  also  requesting  this  same  power  of  exemption, 
which  is  granted  to  the  local  subscribers  upon  petition. 


48  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

In  Ontario  the  local  taxation  of  personal  property  was  abol- 
ished in  1903,  a  business  tax  being  substituted.  At  the  present 
session  of  the  provincial  legislature  a  petition  was  presented, 
signed  officially  by  over  two  hundred  municipalities,  asking  for 
the  same  right  of  home  rule  in  the  partial  or  total  exemption 
of  improvements  as  exists  in  British  Columbia.  It  has  been 
opposed  so  far  by  the  party  in  power  in  the  province,  although 
strongly  supported  by  the  Ottawa  Citizen  and  other  daily  papers 
under  the  same  ownership,  and  also  by  a  large  number  of  civic  or- 
ganizations. A  year  ago  the  formal  appeal  of  the  city  of  Ottawa 
was  denied  by  the  provincial  legislature  because  the  government 
"  did  not  care  to  give  that  city  any  advantage  over  other  cities," 
to  quote  the  language  of  the  Ottawa  Citiscn. 

Prince  Rupert  is  starting  its  municipal  career  without  taxing 
improvements.  Vancouver  and  Prince  Rupert  are  probably  des- 
tined to  grow  with  tremendous  rapidity.  Doubtless  they  would 
grow  tremendously  even  if  they  had  the  worst  system  of  taxation 
in  the  world,  because  they  are  the  ports  of  Western  Canada  and 
the  terminals  of  great  railway  systems,  but  by  the  policy  of  not 
penalizing  improvements  they  are  certain  to  grow,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  tax  reformers,  with  all  the  greater  rapidity,  and  land 
speculation  will  be,  to  a  considerable  extent,  discouraged,  to  the 
great  advantage  of  the  growing  communities.  In  ten  years' 
time  it  is  expected  that  those  cities  will  be  big  enough  to  attract 
the  attention  of  the  United  States.  If  they  adhere  to  the  present 
policy  they  cannot  but  exert  a  powerful  influence  on  the  State  of 
Washington,  and  probably  Oregon. 

New  York  City  has  a  Committee  on  Congestion  of  Popula- 
tion that  is  said  to  be  reaching  the  conclusion 

iffaTTT    ir  f\^\r^m 

Congest!  *^at  ^e  most  important  thing  to  do  is  to  increase 

the  tax  on  land  values  and  decrease  the  tax 
on  improvements.  "  It  does  not  seem,"  one  public-spirited  offi- 
cial has  said, 

"  that  any  intelligent  man  regarding  the  conditions  which  now 
exist  in  New  York  could  reach  any  other  conclusion.  The  Bor- 
ough of  Queens  contains  about  129  square  miles;  it  has  about 
115,000  separately  assessed  parcels  of  real  estate,  of  which  73,000 
are  unimproved.  The  assessed  land  value  of  Queens  is  $200,- 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  49 

000,000.  The  assessed  value  of  the  unimproved  parcels  is  $100,- 
000,000.  In  this  classification  a  farm  with  a  home  on  it  is  rated 
as  an  improved  parcel.  In  fact,  any  lot  to  which  any  value  what- 
ever is  added  for  improvement  is  rated  as  an  improved  parcel. 
The  per  capita  value  of  land  in  Queens  is  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  per  capita  value  of  land  in  the  other  boroughs,  being  $7/6, 
as  compared  with  $718  in  the  Bronx;  $375  in  Brooklyn,  and 
$1,201  in  Manhattan.  Manhattan  values  are  the  result  of  the 
dense  population  and,  one  may  say,  of  the  activities  of  the  whole 
world.  Tax  reformers  are  beginning  to  declare  that  it  does  not 
take  very  much  imagination  to  see  what  would  happen  in  Queens 
if  the  City  of  New  York  adopted  the  policy  of  Vancouver." 

A  notable  taxation  settlement  was  that  providing  for  the  pay- 
ment of  arrearages  of   franchise  taxes  due  the  City  of  New 
York  the  Metropolitan  Street  Railway  Company 
Franchise  Taxes    an(j  otjier  corporations,  arrived  at  in  May  last. 

The  basis  of  the  settlement  is  practically  on  the  65  per  cent  al- 
lowance on  which  the  Third  Avenue  Railroad  has  settled  its  total 
franchise  indebtedness.  The  Metropolitan  at  the  date  of  the  May 
settlement  had  paid  $2,640,000  into  the  city  treasury  on  account, 
and  under  the  agreement  the  total  will  be  increased  to  $6,390,- 
ooo.  This  arrangement  is  exclusive  of  the  Manhattan  Elevated 
Company,  the  Second  Avenue  and  Central  Park,  and  the  North 
and  East  River  lines,  whose  indebtedness  will  be  settled,  it  is  ex-. 
pected,  on  much  the  same  basis. 

With  the  final  approval  of  this  plan  of  payment  practically  all 
the  franchise  taxes  due  the  city  will  have  been  settled,  with  the 
exception  of  the  claim  against  the  New  York  Central  Railroad. 

Originally  the  claim  against  the  Metropolitan  system  was 
$7,500,000,  and  the  putting  into  effect  of  the  agreement  by  which 
the  receivers  and  bondholders  of  the  company  will  pay  the  major 
part  of  this  is  regarded  as  most  interesting  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  in  the  reorganization  scheme  recently  drawn  up  there  was 
an  intimation  that  the  roads  would  only  have  to  pay  $1,500,000 
in  old  damage  claims  pending  against  the  New  York  City  Rail- 
way Company  as  lessee.  Mayor  Gaynor  had  a  large  share  in 
effecting  this  satisfactory  settlement  under  a  law  which  recog- 
nizes the  right  of  the  community  to  share  in  the  profits  of  an  un- 
dertaking to  which  it  gives  a  valuable  privilege. 


50  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

This  being  the  year  of  the  taking  of  decennial  census,  the 
newspapers  and  periodicals  generally  have  been  filled  with  sta- 
tistics concerning  the  cost  of  municipal  govern- 
Financial  t  and  the  growth  of  population.     In  addi- 

Statistics  ,      ^  „          , 

tion  the  Census  Bureau  s  annual  reports  have 

furnished  the  usual  quota  of  interesting  figures.  The  Bulletin 
issued  on  July  7th  last  showed  that  $405,000,000  had  been  spent 
in  1908  maintaining  and  operating  city  departments  of  the  158 
cities  having  an  estimated  population  of  30,000  or  more.  The 
maintenance  of  schools  and  the  protection  of  light  and  property 
by  the  police  represented  55  per  cent  of  this  total.  For  the  whole 
group  of  cities  the  average  per  capita  expense  for  schools  was 
$4.70;  for  police  department,  $2.25;  for  fire  departments,  $1.72. 
The  increased  cost  of  maintaining  administrative  departments  of 
cities  in  recent  years  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  in  147  cities 
of  over  30,000  population  in  1902  the  cost  was  $13.36  per  capita, 
while  for  the  same  cities  in  1908  it  was  $16.81. 

The  financial  transactions  of  the  158  cities  involved  the  receipt 
and  expenditure  of  more  than  $1,250,000,000.  Payments 
amounted  to  $1,284,000,000  and  receipts  to  $1,336,000,000.  The 
excess  of  the  receipts  over  payments  was  due  to  large  loans  by 
cities  during  the  year,  and  is  reflected  in  the  cash  on  hand  at  the 
close  of  the  year. 

Payments  on  account  of  outlays  for  new  purposes  or  new 
work  by  the  158  cities  above  mentioned  amounted  for  1908  to 
$275,003,695,  as  compared  with  $244,117,298  in  1907.  Over 
one-third  of  the  1908  expenditures  was  paid  by  New  York  City. 
The  figures  are  as  follows:  New  York,  $83,417,149;  Chicago, 
$18,093,986,  and  Philadelphia,  $14,473,184. 

Expressed  in  per  capita  averages  the  cities  with  over  300,000 
population  with  the  highest  expenses  were  Boston,  $27.58;  New 
York,  $24.71,  and  Washington,  $24.63.  Those  with  the  lowest 
were  New  Orleans,  $12.76,  and  Baltimore,  $13.24.  As  indicated 
by  the  net  interest  columns  the  cities  of  over  300,000  population 
with  the  best  credit  rates  were  Detroit,  3.37  per  cent;  Boston, 
3.64  per  cent,  and  Philadelphia,  3.79  per  cent.  For  cities  with 
from  100,000  to  300,000,  those  with  high  rates  were  Indianapolis, 
3.49;  Cambridge,  3.56,  and  Worcester,  3.69.  In  the  class  of 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  51 

cities  of  less  than  100,000  Somerville,  Massachusetts,  leads  with 
3.69. 

From  the  figures  published  by  the  Census  Bureau  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  Detroit,  Indianapolis,  and  most  of  the  Massachusetts 
cities  can  borrow  money  on  extremely  favorable  terms,  while 
most  of  the  southern  cities  and  New  York  have  to  pay  materially 
higher  rates.  The  length  of  time  that  bonds  have  to  run  has 
some  effect  upon  rates  of  interest  the  cities  have  to  pay  for  the 
use  of  money. 

The  total  net  indebtedness  of  the  158  cities  at  the  close  of 

1908  was  $1,718,000,000  and  of  this  amount  39.8  per  cent,  or 

$684,000,000,  is  credited  to  New  York  City  alone.     That  city 

had  more  than  seven  times  the  indebtedness  of 

? ®.w, ,  any  other  city  and  more  than  one-half  the  total 

Indebtedness  / ,  ' 

of  the  29  largest  cities  of  the  country.    The  per 

capita  net  debt  of  New  York  City  was  $157.74  and  the  only  other 
cities  having  a  per  capita  net  indebtedness  of  over  $100  were 
Cincinnati,  Boston,  Galveston,  Portland,  Newton,  Massachu- 
setts ;  Pueblo,  Colorado,  and  Pawtucket.  The  increase  in  the  net 
debt  for  the  fiscal  year  1908  was  $185,877,856,  as  compared  with 
a  total  increase  for  1907  of  $120,930,631. 

As  the  census  report  pointed  out,  in  any  discussion  of  indebt- 
edness it  should  be  remembered  that  the  value  of  public  improve- 
ments, and  especially  the  amounts  expended  on  public-service 
enterprises,  should  be  taken  into  consideration.  Many  cities  own 
their  water  works,  some  their  lighting  plants,  and  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  indebtedness  of  such  cities  may  be  incurred  in 
the  purchase  or  construction  of  such  plants.  Thus  in  New  York 
City  36.9,  per  cent  of  the  total  debt,  a  much  larger  percentage 
than  that  for  most  cities,  has  been  created  for  the  acquisition  and 
extension  of  such  public-service  enterprises  as  the  water  supply 
system,  toll  bridges,  and  so  forth,  which  enterprises  are  self- 
supporting. 

As  showing  the  growth  of  municipal  expenditures  the  New 
York  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  prepared  a  comparative 
table  of  the  increase  of  municipal  expenditure  with  the  increase 
of  population,  to  explain  the  action  of  the  Board  of  Estimates  and 


52  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

Apportionment  in  limiting  the  expenditures  for  next  year  to  the 
present  year's  figures.    Here  is  the  table: 

Per  cent. 

Increase  in  city's  population 38.68 

Property  values  52.23 

Total  budget  79.69 

Health  department 160.32 

Law  department 110.98 

Charities  department  101.63 

Finance  department 99-56 

Education  department  95-82 

Park  department   (all) 83.60 

Brooklyn  and  Queens 109.29 

The  Bronx 89.30 

Manhattan  and  Richmond 71-45 

Fire  department 68.43 

Correction  department 66.67 

Street  cleaning  department 49-69 

Tax  and  assessment  department 47-59 

Police  department  33-39 

Kansas  City  is  establishing  some  new  civil  service  precedents 
that  are  likely  to  prove  of  wide  usefulness.  In  the  first  place  the 
new  commission  which  Mayor  Brown  appointed 
Civil  Service  in  began  jts  examinations  with  the  highest  posi- 
tions not  exempted  under  the  law.  This  policy 
was  adopted  because  it  was  thought  that  it  would  obtain  men 
having  authority  in  each  of  the  departments,  who  being  selected 
on  the  merit  system,  would  be  entirely  in  sympathy  with  its  pur- 
poses. It  was  also  thought  it  would  result  in  more  loyalty  on  the 
part  of  employees  to  their  superior  officers  if  they  knew  the  man 
in  charge  had  already  passed  the  test  to  which  they  later  would 
be  subjected,  rather  than  the  reverse.  This  was  indeed  a  wise 
idea,  for  if  the  merit  system  is  to  be  accepted  heartily  by  the  rank 
and  file  they  must  be  persuaded  that  it  represents  merit  all  along 
the  line,  rather  than  in  spots,  and  that  it  applies  to  all,  high  and 
low  alike. 

The  idea  of  having  a  committee  of  three  experts  to  conduct  the 
examination  and  grade  papers  for  each  group  of  examinations 
has  been  adopted.  This  is  a  wholesale  adoption  of  the  plan 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  53 

worked  out  by  the  Chicago  Commission  at  the  time  it  held  its 
examination  for  librarian  of  the  public  library.  Moreover, 
before  the  examinations  have  been  completed,  there  will  be  at 
least  two  or  three  hundred  citizens  who  will  feel  that  they  have 
had  a  hand  in  the  building-up  of  the  merit  system,  and  who, 
having  helped  to  build  it  up,  will  naturally  be  stronger  advocates 
of  the  system  than  they  would  otherwise  have  been.  They  also 
will  have  an  opportunity  to  know  at  first  hand  the  Commission's 
idea  of  a  true  merit  system  worked  out  without  prejudice,  either 
personal,  political  or  religious. 

Already  some  of  the  very  best  citizens  have  served  on  these 

committees.     For  instance,  the  Commission  recently  completed 

an  examination  for  all  the  positions  in  the  city 

counselor's  office — about  14.     There  were  over 
Examiners  _,  •      ,  • 

100  applicants.    The  committee  in  this  case  was 

one  of  the  most  respected  older  members  of  the  Kansas  City 
Bar;  a  former  city  counselor,  and  the  president  of  the  City  Club. 
For  the  examination  of  the  street  cleaning  commissioner,  the 
Commission  had  the  Hon.  Henry  M.  Beardsley,  formerly  mayor 
of  Kansas  City;  one  of  the  Charter  Commission,  and  a  leading 
engineer.  For  the  city  engineer  it  had  a  member  of  the  fire  and 
water  board;  a  prominent  civil  engineer,  and  a  major  of  the  en- 
gineering branch  of  the  U.  S.  Army,  who  is  working  out  the 
river  problems  in  Kansas  City  and  vicinity. 

For  the  examination  of  superintendent  of  the  work-house  the 
committee  was  made  up  of  one  of  the  leading  philanthropists 
and  a  student  of  sociology,  a  wealthy  and  successful  merchant, 
head  of  the  Jewish  Educational  Institute,  and  a  former  presi- 
dent of  the  City  Club,  and  deeply  interested  in  municipal  farm 
ideas. 

The  utilization  of  such  well-known  citizens  and  experts  whose 
reputation  for  integrity  and  honesty  of  purpose  is  beyond  ques- 
tion, makes  it  possible  to  test  and  grade  personality  and  experi- 
ence by  extensive  oral  examinations,  not  always  possible  under 
any  other  previous  method  of  administration  of  civil  service  fol- 
lowed elsewhere.  All  the  examinations  give  heavy  weight  to 
these  oral  tests. 

From  the  outset  the  Massachusetts  Civil  Service  Commission, 


54 


THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 


in  dealing  with  the  Boston  situation  under  the  new  charter,  has 
adopted  the  policy  of  declining  to  engage  in  con- 

Bpstpns  troversies  or  to  state  reasons  for  its  action,  the 

Civil  Service  ,,  c. 

statute  not  imposing  that  duty  upon  it.  Sixty- 
two  appointments  (thirty-seven  to  paid  and  twenty-five  to  unpaid 
positions)  have  been  made  by  the  mayor  as  heads  of  departments 
and  to  members  of  municipal  boards.  Of  the  appointments  to 
paid  positions,  the  commission  has  approved  twenty-three.  Of 
the  appointments  to  unpaid  positions,  twenty-one  have  been  ap- 
proved, and  one  is  pending.  Of  the  twenty-two  new  appoint- 
ments to  paid  positions  as  heads  of  important  departments,  fifteen 
appear  to  have  been  made  as  rewards  for  political  support  given 
to  the  mayor.  Of  the  fifteen  political  appointments,  three  only 
were  approved.  Of  the  seven  appointments  which  appeared  not 
to  have  been  made  as  rewards  for  political  service,  five  were  ap- 
proved. 

However  the  friends  of  individual  appointees  "  may  differ  in 
opinion  ",  to  use  the  words  of  the  Finance  Commission,  "  as  to 
the  action  of  the  civil  service  commission  in  particular  cases, 
all  disinterested  persons  will  agree  that  the  decisions  of  that 
commission  have  been  made  in  good  faith  for  the  best  interests 
of  the  city,  and  that  the  wisdom  of  the  law  under  which  they 
acted  has  been  demonstrated."  The  finance  commission  believes 
that  the  city  has  not  suffered  a  loss  in  any  instance  of  rejection; 
that  a  much  higher  standard  of  selection  was  intended  by  the 
charter  amendments,  and  that  persons  better  qualified  for  the 
offices  in  question  should  have  been  found.  The  political  purpose 
underlying  appointments  of  heads  of  departments  and  members 
of  municipal  boards  has  been  manifest  in  the  removal  and  ap- 
pointment of  subordinates  in  several  departments.  The  chair- 
man of  the  board  of  bath  trustees  resigned  recently  because  he 
found  his  views  respecting  the  appointment  of  subordinates  ir- 
reconcilable with  those  of  the  mayor." 

Conditions  in  Boston,  however,  are  peculiar,  as  Good  Govern- 
ment l  has  editorially  pointed  out : 

"  The  city  is  normally  Democratic,  the  state,  Republican.    The 
1  The  publication  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  55 

city  is  largely  governed  by  the  state.  For  abuses  in  local  gov- 
ernment, of  which  there  have  been  many,  the  remedy  has  always 
been  special  legislation.  The  new  charter  as  a  whole  was  not 
submitted  to  the  citizens  of  Boston.  The  provisions  of  confirma- 
tion of  appointments  by  the  civil  service  commission  and  for  a 
permanent  finance  commission  were  enacted  by  a  Republican 
legislature  without  a  referendum.  The  civil  service  commission 
is  a  commission  appointed  by  a  Republican  governor.  The  or- 
ganization of  the  Boston  city  government  can  be  better  termed 
a  disorganization.  There  are  forty-five  separate  departments 
created  by  statute  or  ordinance,  of  which  the  heads  are  some- 
times boards,  sometimes  single  commissions.  There  are  in  con- 
sequence 10  heads  of  departments  on  whose  appointments  in 
course  of  time  the  commission  will  have  to  pass." 

In  the  judgment  of  the  same  authority,  however,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  the  civil  service  commission  has  been  actuated  by 
political  consideration  in  its  action  upon  the  mayor's  nomina- 
tions. The  commission  has  been  conscientiously  trying  to  carry 
out  its  difficult  and  unpleasant  task  in  the  spirit  of  the  charter, 
and  to  maintain  a  standard  which  should  insure  the  employment 
of  experts  or  other  qualified  persons. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Boston  does  not  possess  home  rule  in  even 
a  slight  degree,  and  concentration  of  authority  and  responsibility 
is  still  far  off.  If  the  people  of  Boston  want  a  Fitzgerald  for 
mayor,  they  should  be  allowed  to  have  him.  They  should  not  be 
saved  from  the  consequences  of  their  judgment  by  any  divine 
or  state  intervention.  The  sooner  they  learn  to  govern  them- 
selves, the  sooner  they  are  required  to  pay  the  price  of  their 
political  judgment  and  choice,  the  sooner  Boston  will  be  estab- 
lished on  a  more  substantial,  self-governing  basis. 

In  Chicago  civil  service  continues  to  make  substantial  prog- 
ress. There  is  no  doubt  that  the  civil  service  law  in  force  is 
sound.  As  the  president  of  the  civil  service  re- 

icago  form  association  declared  in  a  recent  communi- 

Civil  Service  .       ..  T , 

cation,     If  we  had  it  to  draft  again  there  would 

be  no  important  changes  beyond  covering  any  exempt  position. 
The  trial  clause  has  been  most  attacked,  but  after  all  has  been 
said,  our  executive  committee  is  of  the  opinion  that  its  legislative 
defects  may  be  corrected  in  administration  conforming  to  the 
terms  of  the  act.  We  know  of  no  better  law." 


56  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

Looking  at  the  results,  the  law  has  been  of  immense  benefit 
to  the  city.  Any  attempt  to  weaken  or  defeat  the  law,  if  it 
clearly  appeared  to  be  such,  could  be  beaten  at  the  polls  by  an 
overwhelming  majority.  The  administration  is  Republican.  The 
employees  are  nearly  all  Democratic.  To  quote  the  president  of 
the  civil  service  reform  association  again, 

"  There  are  five  types  of  attempts  to  beat  the  law ;  first,  the 
creation  of  new  departments,  the  heads  thereof  being  exempt 
under  the  civil  service  act ;  second,  statutes  passed  by  the  '  jack- 
pot '  legislature  at  Springfield  in  violation  of  the  principle  of 
home  rule,  taking  over  municipal  activities  or  creating  new  ones 
and  providing  for  spoils  appointments,  for  example,  parks,  sani- 
tary districts,  education,  municipal  tuberculosis  hospital;  third f 
sixty-day  appointments  continued  from  year  to  year,  the  number 
decreasing  however,  each  year;  fourth,  common  labor  employ- 
ment where  no  adequate  way  of  eliminating  ward  politics  has 
yet  been  devised;  fifth,  use  of  corrupt  or  incompetent  judges  to 
tie  up  examinations,  interfere  with  promotions,  classifications, 
and  generally  horse-play  with  the  law,  thus  necessitating  tem- 
porary appointments,  delaying  efficient  reform,  restoring  dis- 
charged employees,  holding  the  law  up  as  un- 
Efficiency  workable  and  responsible  for  all  manner  of  ad- 

Eecords  ministrative  ills.  The  introduction  and  use  of 

efficiency  records  represents  a  development  of 
far-reaching  importance.  The  following  will  show  the  general 
lines  pursued  in  ascertaining  them. 

"  First,  the  efficiency  examiners  ascertain  the  duties  imposed 
upon  a  group  of  employees  (usually  a  bureau,  division  or  geo- 
graphical unit)  by  the  statutes,  city  ordinances,  departmental 
regulations  and  office  practice.  These  are  entered  on  the  card 
of  each  employee  in  the  group.  The  duties  are  supervisory  and 
personal.  The  existing  classification  is  tested  in  the  light  of  this 
information  and  by  use  of  pay  rolls  to  insure  uniformity  of  pay, 
duties,  title  and  grades.  Cases  of  employees  '  out  of  grade ' 
are  got  ready  for  the  finance  committee  of  the  city  council — 
the  budget-making  body.  Unless  the  employee  drops  into  grade 
he  is  barred  from  promotion. 

"  Usually  the  efficiency  examiners  find  that  there  are  too  many 
grades  and  the  tendency  is  towards  reduction. 

"  Second,  the  organization  is  then  charted  in  respect  to  super- 
vision, responsibility  or  authority,  and  lines  of  promotion  for 
each  grade.  This  shows  up  graphically  faults  of  organization 
and  ultimately  will  force  re-organization  all  along  the  line.  Every 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  57- 

alderman  is  given  a  chart  book  and  numerous  absurdities,  pre- 
viously overlooked,  come  to  light.  For  example,  we  find  dupli- 
cation and  triplication  of  functions  in  different  bureaus ;  that 
the  finance  department  is  scattered  all  over  the  city  hall ;  that  the 
chief  of  police  is  in  charge  of  the  second  largest  construction 
divison  in  the  city  and  that  the  fire  department  is  the  second 
largest  purchasing  agency.  When  attention  is  called  to  the 
matter,  department  heads  regard  these  anomalies  as  possible 
sources  of  danger  and  are  disposed  to  join  the  reorganization 
movement. 

"  Third,  the  efficiency  examiners  inquire  what  is  a  day's  work 
for  the  individuals  of  each  grade.  The  service  is  measured  and 
employment  standardized.  Employees  may  be  observed  and 
timed.  Comparison  of  volume  of  business  and  employees  re- 
quired to  transact  it  in  private  employ  compared  with  the  group 
under  observation.  Sometimes  the  head  of  the  department  con- 
cerned or  the  head  of  the  group  will  give  the  examiners  a 
special  detail  of  men  and  let  them  experiment.  Also  cost-figuring 
methods  are  applied.  No  branch  of  efficiency  calls  for  as  much 
ingenuity  and  diversity  of  methods  as  the  measuring  of  service. 
In  the  efforts  to  get  at  it  a  training  school  for  police  recruits,  and 
a  school  for  library  employees  have  been  established.  Group  and 
individual  efficiency  is  recorded,  the  first  on  the  efficiency  records 
of  the  supervisors  responsible  and  the  latter  upon  the  records  of 
individual  employees.  The  factors  of  efficiency  with  weights  for 
each  are  also  ascertained  just  as  subjects  and  weights  are  ascer- 
tained before  a  civil  service  entrance  examination."  * 

Fifty  thousand  dollars  has  been  appropriated  by  the  city  to 
cover  the  cost  of  the  efficiency  department  of  the  commission. 

There  is  another  interesting  development  of  the  firm  establish- 
ment of  the  merit  system  and  the  disclosures  of  the  Merriam 
investigating  committee.  In  June,  at  Peoria, 
peo£ia  citizens  from  all  over  the  state,  met  to  consider 

the  restoration  of  representative  government  in 
Illinois.  After  deliberation,  they  voted  that  three  constructive 
measures  were  necessary  to  restore  democratic  institutions ;  first, 
the  initiative  and  referendum;  second,  a  state-wide  civil  service 
law;  third,  a  corrupt  practices  act.  A  committee  of  seven  was 
organized  to  advance  these  ends.  In  July  this  committee  of  seven 
and  the  Civil  Service  Reform  Association  began  an  active  cam- 
paign to  secure  votes  on  the  question :  "  Shall  the  next  General 

1  See  article  in  "  Engineering  Record  "  of  August  20,  1910. 


58  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

Assembly  extend  the  merit  system  by  the  enactment  of  a  com- 
prehensive and  adequate  state  civil  service  law,  that  promoting 
economy  and  efficiency  ?  "  1 10,000  signatures  for  the  submission 
of  the  question  were  obtained,  and  the  question  answered  in  the 
affirmative  by  a  large  majority.1 

A  civil  service  decision  of  more  than  local  interest  was  that  of 
the  New  Jersey  Court  of  Errors  and  Appeals,2  which  held: 

i.  That  the  New  Jersey  civil  service  law  is  not  vitiated  by  the 
fact  that  with  respect  to  those  municipalities  which  properly 
adopt  its  provisions,  the  act  confers  a  participa- 
Hew  Jersey  Civil  tion  in  the  local  government  upon  a  commission 
Service  Law's  not  chosen  by  the  several  municipalities  affected 
Constitutionality  nor  from  among  their  citizens  or  inhabitants. 

2.  The  constitution  of  New  Jersey  does  not 
guarantee  to  the  people  of  the  several  political  divisions  of  the 
state  the  right  of  local  self-government,  so  as  to  disable  the  legis- 
lature from  providing  for  the  government  of  those  divisions  by 
commissions  chosen  otherwise  than  by  the  people  themselves. 

"  3.  The  constitution  prohibits  the  passage  of  local  or  special 
laws,  but  not  of  general  laws,  '  appointing  local  offices  (sic)  or 
commissions  to  regulate  municipal  affairs.' 

"4.  In  the  exercise  of  the  judicial  function  of  declaring  an 
act  of  the  legislature  unconstitutional,  the  ultimate  question  is, 
not  whether  the  court  regards  the  constitution  as  permitting  the 
act,  but  whether  the  constitution  permits  the  court  to  disregard 
the  act;  the  test  being  not  the  court's  judgment  as  to  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  act  but  its  conclusion  as  to  what  judgment 
was  permissible  to  the  legislative  branch  of  the  government  in 
which  the  constitution  has  reposed  the  duty  of  making  such 
judgment  as  an  incident  of  the  law-making  power;  hence  if  there 
be  a  permissible  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of  the  constitutional 
limitation  invoked  against  the  validity  of  an  act  the  courts  will 
not  declare  the  act  to  be  contrary  to  the  constitution. 

"  5.  The  legislature  may  impose  its  will  as  law  upon  municipali- 
ties ;  but,  if  some  other  will  is  to  intervene,  it  must  be  that  of  the 
people  who  are  to  be  governed  by  such  municipal  law  and  not  an 

1  The  vote  on  the  statewide  civil  service  ballot  was  404,444  in  favor  to 
119,889  against;  on  the  initiative  and  referendum  proposition  443,505 
for  to  127,751  against;  and  on  the  corrupt  practices  act  417,311  for  to 
122,168  against.  The  expression  of  opinion  was  advisory  not  mandatory. 
— EDITOR. 

*  Attorney-General  ex  rel.  Booth  vs.  McGuiness,  February  4th,  1910. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  59 

alien  will,  even  though  it  be  that  of  the  governing  body  for  the 
time  being  of  such  municipality. 

"  6.  The  distinction  observed  between  legislative  acts  requiring 
acceptance  to  become  municipal  charters  (i.  e.,  referendum  sta- 
tutes) and  those  conferring  legislative  powers  to  be  exercised 
(or  not)  by  the  local  legislative  bodies  (i.  e.,  statutes  delegating 
powers  of  local  government)  ;  and  the  further  distinction  ob- 
served between  the  acceptance  of  referendum  statutes  by  the 
people  at  the  polls  and  the  exercise  of  delegated  power  by  the 
local  legislative  body. 

"  7.  A  statute  in  the  nature  of  a  supplemental  charter  that  is 
enacted  to  take  effect  upon  its  adoption  by  the  governing  body 
of  a  municipality  is  not  a  constitutionally  enacted  law. 

"  8.  The  civil  service  law  *  in  so  far  as  its  operation  is  made 
to  depend  upon  its  adoption  by  the  governing  body  of  a  muni- 
cipality is  unconstitutional." 

There  has  been  no  appreciable  diminution  of  interest  in  nomi- 
nation reform,  although  there  has  been  an  increasing  apprecia- 
tion of  the  fact  that  it  is  only  a  step  towards 
jNomina  i<  ^   restoratjon  of  popular  government.     The 

best  primary  act,  as  the  Chicago  Record-Herald 
has  so  pertinently  pointed  out,  is  only  a  tool.  It  is  not  a  substi- 
tute for  hard  work  and  intelligence.  For  a  while  there  was 
danger  that  some  of  the  more  zealous  advocates  of  the  new 
politics  might  regard  nomination  reform  as  a  panacea  for  all  our 
political  ills  and  as  effective  in  itself.  To-day  nomination  reform 
is  to  the  fore-front  in  those  states  which  have  not  yet  secured 
a  law  authorizing  direct  nomination.  Where  the  law  has  been 
established  the  aim  is  to  perfect  and  extend  it,  not  to  destroy  it.3 
The  movement  for  the  establishment  of  the  initiative,  refer- 
endum and  recall  is  a  part  of  the  same  movement  as  that  mani- 
festing itself  in  the  demand  for  the  direct  nomi- 
nation  of  candidates.  They  are  all  part  of  the 
desire  for  a  more  democratic  form  of  govern- 
ment, a  more  responsive  electoral  machinery.  As  for  the  past 
ten  years,  Oregon  retains  its  leadership  in  this  direction.  There 

1  P.  L.  1908,  p.  235. 

2  See  Louis  M.  Greely's  address  on  the  "  Present  Status  of  Nomina- 
tion Reform,"  infra. 


60  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

has  been  a  feeling,  however,  that  the  initiative  and  referendum 
have  been  somwhat  overworked  in  this  state.  It  must  be  con- 
ceded, however,  that  the  results  so  far  have  not  justified  this 
fear,  inasmuch  as  the  Oregon  voters  have  shown  remarkable  dis- 
crimination in  their  voting  up  or  voting  down  propositions  sub-, 
mitted  to  them  under  the  initiative  and  referendum  laws.  It  is  true 
there  have  been  trivial  questions  submitted,  but  these  have  not 
interfered  with  the  intelligent  expression  of  opinion  on  other  ques- 
tions submitted.  That  this  is  so  is  due  to  the  fact  that  as  a  voter 
enters  the  booth  to  vote  upon  candidates  and  policies  he  is  handed 
a  small  pamphlet,  of  which  in  the  campaign  just  closed  twenty 
pages  contained  the  list  of  the  names  to  be  voted  on  and  forty 
pages  were  devoted  to  the  several  propositions  to  be  voted  upon. 
In  most  instances  the  issues  have  been  discussed  in  the  news^ 
papers  for  over  a  year,  and  public  meetings  have  been  held  for 
the  presentation  of  arguments  pro  and  con.  The  Pacific  Outlook 
is  authority  for  the  statement  that  one-third  of  the  questions  sub- 
mitted are  merely  fakes  put  up  by  a  legislature  desiring  to  dis- 
credit direct  legislation.  Another  third  are  the  result  of  legis- 
lative carelessness  and  stupidity.  Still  another  third  are  bona- 
fide  issues  upon  which  public  expression  is  needed.  In  the  last 
campaign  among  the  latter  was  the  project  for  a  state  publica- 
tion to  fulfil  for  the  State  of  Oregon  what  such  papers  as  the 
Denver  Facts,  Philadelphia,  the  Kansas  City  Facts,  the  Boston 
Record,  and  other  official  city  publications  have  been  doing  for 
their  respective  communities. 

In  Illinois  a  vigorous  campaign  for  the  adoption  of  the  in- 
.     .  itiative  and  referendum  has  been  waged.    The 

P  fkrendum          proposition  submitted  to  the  voters  at  the  No- 
vember election  was  in  the  following  form: 

"  Shall  the  next  general  assembly  submit  to  the  voters  of  the 
State  of  Illinois  at  the  next  following  election  an  amendment 
to  the  state  constitution  providing  for  the  control  of  legislation 
by  the  people  by  means  of  the  initiative  and  the  referendum,  said 
amendment  to  provide  for  the  initiation  of  legislation  upon  the 
petition  of  eight  per  cent  of  the  voters,  and  for  the  reference  of 
legislation  upon  the  petition  of  5  per  cent  of  the  voters,  the 
action  of  a  majority  of  electors  voting  to  be  final,  thus  restoring 
to  the  people  the  power  which  they  once  held  but  which  they  dele- 
gated to  the  general  assembly  by  the  Constitution." 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  6l 

To  paraphrase  the  language  of  the  supporters  of  this  proposi- 
tion, there  are  doubtless  advocates  of  the  initiative  and  refer- 
endum who  believe  in  the  application  from  convictions  of  pure 
democracy,  but  the  significance  of  the  movement  in  the  State  of 
Illinois  and  the  movement  which  has  spread  throughout  the  entire 
country,  is  that  it  is  a  conservative  movement.  At  all  events  the 
men  who  are  principally  concerned  in  advocating  the  measure 
throughout  the  country  and  who  are  conspicuously  identified 
with  it,  are  men  who  would  be  naturally  classified  as  conser- 
vatives. 

In  the  opinion  of  Walter  L.  Fisher,  of  Chicago,  this  statement 
would  apply  even  to  the  most  conspicuous  exponent  of  the  initia- 
tive and  referendum  in  the  United  States  to-day,  Senator  Jona- 
than Bourne,  of  Oregon,  who  by  birth,  education  and  tradition, 
and  through  the  possession  of  more  than  the  average  amount  of 
property,  would  hardly  be  counted  among  the  radicals.  In  Mr. 
Fisher's  opinion,  the  reason  lies  in  that  the  movement  empha- 
sizes the  necessity  for  sane  and  effective  safeguards,  quite  as 
much  as  it  emphasizes  the  need  of  some  method  by  which  the 
people  can  effectively  control  that  legislation  which  they  are 
unable  to  secure  through  elected  representatives.  The  move- 
ment as  a  whole  has  been  due  to  the  recognition  that  under  exist- 
ing methods  representative  democracy  has  not  worked  as  it 
should,  has  not  effectually  carried  out  what  is  the  underlying 
purpose  of  the  great  body  of  the  people.  That  unquestionably 
is  the  situation  in  Illinois  and  in  most  other  places.  Even  strong 
advocates  of  the  representative  system  (and  Mr.  Fisher  and  the 
writer  belong  to  that  class)  are  compelled  to  acknowledge  that 
the  results  have  not  been  such  as  to  create  confidence  in  that  sys- 
tem. Something  has  been  lacking.  If  the  initiative  and  the 
referendum  will  supply  that  lack  they  are  willing  to  try  the  ex- 
periment, with  the  hope  that  the  American  system  of  municipal 
and  state  government  may  be  made  truly  responsive  and  respon- 
sible to  the  people. 

No  small  part  of  the  present  growth  of  the  initiative  and  refer- 
endum and  the  recall  has  been  due  to  the  spread  of  the  commis- 
sion form  of  government.  The  results  in  those  cities  operating 
under  that  system  have  been  so  uniformly  beneficial  that  long- 


62  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

time  opponents  of  the  initiative  and  the  referendum  are  weak- 
ening in  their  opposition.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  nothing 
new  in  the  referendum,  for  from  the  beginning  the  people  have 
voted  on  the  adoption  of  constitutions  and  constitutional  amend- 
ments. The  modern  application  of  the  principle,  however,  repre- 
sents an  improvement  in  that  instead  of  submitting  the  entire 
instrument  covering  all  phases  of  government,  questions  are 
submitted  one  by  one  in  a  form  which  admits  of  a  comparatively 
easy  formulation  of  a  sound  judgment. 

Advocates  of  a  short  ballot  have  been  fearful  lest  the  initiative 
and  the  referendum  would  militate  against  that  movement.  Ex- 
perience with  the  short  ballot  and  the  referendum  and  the 
initiative  has  not  been  sufficiently  extended  to  justify  one  in 
making  any  dogmatic  assertion  one  way  or  the  other.  With  the 
concentration  of  legislative  and  administrative  duties  in  the  hands 
of  a  small  number  of  elective  officers,  it  would  seem  as  if  there 
should  be  adequate  provision  for  the  voters  to  declare  themselves 
upon  the  questions  of  policy,  otherwise  there  would  not  be  that 
separation  of  the  policy  determining  functions  from  the  policy 
executing  functions. 

A  steady  progress  of  public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  short  ballot 
is  to  be  noted.  Involving  as  it  does  constitutional  changes,  there 

is  very  little  to  report  in  the  way  of  concrete  ac- 
B  ,*?  ,  °  complishment,  although  the  adoption  of  the 

commission  form  of  government  represents  one 
form  of  short  ballot,  and  in  this  direction  there  has  been  a  very 
substantial  advance  during  the  past  year.  Moreover  the  agita- 
tion of  the  short  ballot  idea  has  brought  about  a  more  wide- 
spread consideration  of  the  whole  question  of  our  governmental 
machinery,  within  the  result  of  awakenink  the  people  to  their 
duty  and  responsibility  in  the  premises. 

Franchise  questions  still  occupy  a  large  measure  of  active  at- 
tention, academic  and  practical.  The  subject  of  the  control  of 

public-service  corporations  and  the  valuation  of 
ranc  ise  their  property  is  receiving  consideration  at  the 

hands  not  only  of  economists  but  of  city  offi- 
cials and  municipal  students  generally.  A  number  of  important 
reports  on  various  phases  of  the  question  have  been  published 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  63 

during  the  year,  as  well  as  a  variety  of  significant  magazine 
articles.  In  addition  Dr.  Delos  F.  Wilcox  is  putting  through  the 
press  a  book  on  municipal  franchises  embodying  his  experience 
and  studies  as  an  expert  connected  with  the  Public  Utilities  Com- 
mission No.  i  of  New  York,  and  his  long  years  of  study  of  this 
important  question. 

One  of  the  most  significant  developments  of  the  year  was  the 
institution  of  a  suit  in  March  last  by  the  receiver  of  the  New 
York  City  Railway  Company  to  recover  from  the  directors  of 
the  Metropolitan  Securities  Company  the  sum  of  $2,797,200  lost 
from  the  treasury  between  1902  and  1904  by  the  discount  of  its 
ten-year  notes  at  70  and  their  early  redemption  at  par.  The  same 
directors  also  have  been  compelled  to  pay  back  other  large  sums  of 
money,  the  exact  amount  of  which  has  not  been  publicly  dis- 
closed, in  settlement  of  their  methods  of  "  high  finance  ". 

Exploits  in  "  high  finance  "  among  public-service  corporations, 
such  as  the  wrecking  of  the  traction  properties  in  New  York 
City,  have  not  been  confined  to  the  metropolis;  but  have  been 
widespread  and  reach  into  the  affairs  of  similar  corporations 
in  smaller  places.  This  has  been  shown  by  the  investigation  con- 
ducted by  the  New  York  Public  Service  Commission.  This  is 
not  the  statement  of  a  campaign  orator,  but  the  formal  judgment 
of  the  secretary  of  the  commission  which  conducted  the  investi- 
gation, who  gives  facts  and  figures  to  sustain  it. 

As  a  result  of  Governor  Hughes'  far-seeking  policy  the  fran- 
chise problem  in  New  York  municipalities  is  being  placed  upon  a 
higher  and  more  substantial  plane.  As  Mr.  Kennedy,  in  his  re- 
view of  the  work  of  the  commission  of  which  he  is  secretary, 
has  declared,  the  law  is  now  firmly  entrenched  and  among  the 
solidest  of  the  statutes  of  the  state : 

"  Generally  speaking,  the  opinion  of  the  people  of  the  state 
without  any  considerable  number  of  exceptions,  and  of  the  cor- 
poration managers  is  that  the  great  powers  of  the  statute  have 
been  wisely  administered  by  the  commission.  There  can  be  no 
reason  why  each  succeeding  year  will  not  add  to  the  usefulness 
of  the  work  which  can  be  accomplished  under  the  law,  and  great 
benefit  accrue  alike  to  the  corporations  and  to  the  public  which 
they  serve.  .  .  .  The  provision  of  capitalization  has  had  but  one 


64  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

effect,  that  of  enforcing  sound  and  honorable  principles  in  corpor- 
ate management.  It  is  the  fact,  repeatedly  testified  to  before  the 
commissions,  that  securities  authorized  by  commissions  command 
a  premium  from  the  bond  houses  and  investors." 

Cleveland's  railway  settlement  went  into  effect  March  ist  last. 
Since  then  the  wages  of  the  men  have  been  increased,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  some  almost  abnormally,  making  them 
Cleveland's  higher  than  in  any  of  the  large  cities  within  300 

Jtailway  miles  of  Cleveland.     The  three-cent  fare  with 

settlement 

one  cent  transfer  has  thus  far  stood  the  strain. 

In  the  opinion  of  those  who  have  followed  the  situation  care- 
fully the  most  serious  danger  facing  the  continuance  of  this  low 
fare  arises  from  the  fact  that  although  the  settlement  provided 
five  cents  per  car  mile  for  maintenance  and  depreciation,  which 
is  more  than  is  expended  by  any  street  railway  in  the  United 
States  with  possibly  two  or  three  exceptions,  the  company  has 
hitherto  kept  the  road  in  a  somewhat  run-down  condition,  and 
may  endeavor  to  have  arbitration  under  the  lease  for  the  raising 
of  the  rate  per  car  mile  in  order  to  improve  the  road  out  of  the 
maintenance  fund,  as  it  claims  the  franchise  permits.  If  this  is 
done  fares  will  probably  have  to  be  raised  somewhat  for  a  year 
or  two. 

The  Minneapolis  gas  situation  has  been  cleaned  up  satisfac- 
torily to  the  interests  of  the  public,  and  Kansas  City  has  de- 
feated a  proposal  to  extend  its  street  railway 
franchises  for  an  undue  time.1  Denver  seems 
to  be  in  the  way  of  settling  its  long-pending  water  question.  At 
a  regular  city  election  held  May  i/th,  the  offered  franchise  of 
the  Denver  Union  Water  Company  was  defeated  by  about  5,000 
majority.  At  the  same  election  an  amendment  to  the  charter 
of  the  city  was  adopted  by  a  majority  of  something  over  2,000. 
This  provided  that  three  persons  therein  named  constitute  a  public 
utilities  commission  for  a  term  of  two,  four  and  six  years  re- 
spectively, and  that  it  should  be  their  duty  to  offer  the  water  com- 
pany $7,000,000  in  bonds  of  the  city,  as  a  compromise — for  this 
is  estimated  to  be  much  in  excess  of  the  real  value  of  the  plant, 

1  See  papers  of  Stiles  P.  Jones  and  James  W.  S.  Peters. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  65 

some  of  which  is  now  over  twenty  years  old — and  if  this  offer 
should  not  be  accepted  then  proceed  to  construct  a  new  plant,  and 
for  that  purpose,  or  in  the  event  of  the  acceptance  of  the  offered 
price,  then  for  use  in  payment  to  repair,  the  question  should 
be  submitted  to  the  people  of  voting  $8,000,000  in  bonds  at  a 
special  election  to  be  held  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  September. 
The  company  refused  the  offer  of  $7,000,000  in  bonds,  and  is 
negotiating  with  the  commission  for  a  further  settlement. 

In  San  Francisco  what  is  known  as  the  Geary  Street  bond 
issue  carried  by  a  vote  of  31,185  for  to  11,694  against  the  propo- 
sition. This  it  is  expected  will  enable  the  city 
to  operate  a  trunk  line  of  considerable  import- 
ance. Public  opinion  was  somewhat  divided  over  the  proposi- 
sition,  but  the  majority  no  doubt  voted  for  the  bonds,  not  be- 
cause they  were  primarily  in  favor  of  municipal  operation,  but 
because  they  were  so  much  irritated  against  the  poor  service  given 
by  the  United  Railroads,  which  operates  most  of  the  lines  in  the 
city.  As  usually  happens  in  such  cases,  the  whole  matter  has 
been  thrown  into  the  courts  through  an  effort  by  one  of  the 
parties  operating  the  present  road  to  enjoin  the  city  from  selling 
the  bonds  as  authorized. 

Los  Angeles  has  made  some  interesting  contributions  to  fran- 
chise matters,  and  through  its  recently-appointed  Board  of  Public 
Utilities  has  done  some  effective  work  in  settling  long-standing 
local  difficulties  and  in  securing  some  favorable  court  decisions. 
Its  first  annual  report  represents  a  very  useful  year  of  service. 

There  has  been  no  diminution  of  charges  of  graft  during  the 
past  year.  On  the  contrary,  they  seem  to  have  increased,  but  un- 
like in  former  times  they  have  been  followed  by 
indictments,  proofs  and  convictions.  To  illus- 
trate, the  finances  of  Middlesex  County,  Massachusetts,  in  which 
Cambridge  is  located,  are  having  a  much-needed  overhauling. 
The  investigation  of  them  has  developed  some  very  interesting 
facts.  Here  are  several:  $243  were  paid  for  a  cow;  $147.10  for 
a  range  (the  salesman  of  the  Cambridge  Gas  Company,  when 
asked  what  sort  of  range  could  he  bad  for  that  amount,  asked 
if  it  was  to  be  gold-plated)  ;  $23.73  f°r  hanging  pictures  in  the 
jail;  $614.32  for  a  private  bath-room  for  a  woman  prisoner; 


66  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

$2,073  f°r  unspecified  extras.  One  of  the  principal  assessors 
of  the  city  has  been  tried  and  convicted  on  various  counts  of 
larceny,  his  prosecution  growing  out  of  the  complaints  pre- 
ferred and  prosecuted  by  the  Tax  Payers'  Association  of  Cam- 
bridge. 

Lawrence,  Massachusetts,  enjoys  the  unpleasant  notoriety  of 
having  its  mayor  sentenced  to  three  years  in  the  penitentiary,  he 
having  been  convicted  of  conspiracy  to  bribe  other  city  officials. 
Three  other  officials  convicted  at  the  same  time  were  given  vary- 
ing terms  in  prison  and  a  fifth  was  paroled. 

Mayor  Gaynor  has  inflexibly  set  himself  against  graft,  large 
and  small.  Many  of  his  most  important  reforms  have  been  in  the 
direction,  not  so  much  in  the  way  of  exposing 
.  1°una  m*»  graft,  as  in  eliminating  the  sources  of  it.  In  this 
way  he  has  effected  a  saving  of  large  sums, 
and  introduced  a  new  tone  into  the  public  service.  Economy  and 
efficiency  have  certainly  been  to  the  forefront  under  his  admin- 
istration. As  illustrating  the  care  with  which  he  has  watched  such 
matters  may  be  cited  the  letter  he  wrote  to  the  Commissioner 
of  Accounts,  in  which  he  said : 

"  The  comptroller  calls  my  attention  to  a  bill  against  your  de- 
partment dated  March  25th,  for  one  dozen  one  and  one-half  inch 
valve  wheels  at  $1.50  each,  total  $18.  He  has  sent  out  in  the 
market  and  is  able  to  buy  them  freely  at  six  cents  apiece. 

"  You  will  please  forthwith  put  on  trial  the  purchasing  agent, 
and  the  prison  warden,  who  certified  to  the  correctness  of  the 
order  and  the  bill,  and  dismiss  them  from  the  department  sum- 
marily unless  you  can  bring  to  me  some  good  reason  to  the  con- 
trary. 

"  The  thing  seems  to  be  very  scandalous  and  I  am  not  able  to 
perceive  the  slightest  excuse  for  it.  Anyone  looking  at  the  little 
iron  wheel  about  four  inches  in  diameter  would  know  that  it 
could  not  cost  $1.50.  Meanwhile  I  shall  expect  you  to  look  over 
your  entire  department  and  see  if  such  things  are  not  occurring 
everywhere.  Such  miserable  thievery  has  to  be  got  rid  of  in 
some  way." 

Pittburgh's  shame  has  been  so  widely  recounted  as  to  need 
only  passing  reference  in  this  connection.  The  same  remark  ap- 


6? 

plies  to  the  disclosures  in  Illinois.    There  is  this  striking  differ- 
ence, however,  between  the  two  cases,  in  that 

Pittsbur§h  has  been  sending  its  grafters  to  jail 
while  Chicago  and  Illinois  have  been  acquitting 
them.  Possibly  the  reason  for  this  difference  may  be  scented  in 
the  indictment  of  two  men  by  the  Cook  County  grand  jury.  One 
was  a  juror  in  the  second  trial  of  Lee  O'Neill  Brown  on  the 
charge  of  buying  a  vote  for  Lorimer  for  senator.  The  other  was 
the  man  who  procured  the  corruption  of  the  juror.  Their  stories 
revealed  how  they  had  been  paid  $270,  $135  each,  by  one  of  th« 
defendant's  trio  of  lawyers  in  return  for  the  juror's  vote  to  acquit 
the  defendant. 

San  Francisco  had  so  long  been  the  center  of  graft  charges, 
graft  crusades  and  graft  prosecutions  that  former  Mayor  Taylor 
of  that  city  was  fully  justified  in  asking  a  committee  of  public- 
spirited  San-Franciscans  to  investigate  the  situation.  It  con- 
sisted of  a  leading  lawyer,  a  prominent  business-man,  one  of  the 
foremost  Presbyterian  clergymen  in  the  state,  William  Kent, 
whose  work  in  Chicago  is  still  remembered  with  gratitude,  the 
dean  of  one  of  the  medical  colleges,  a  conservative  labor  leader 
and  a  Roman  Catholic  priest.  Such  a  committee,  as  the  Cali- 
fornia Weekly  pointed  out,  was  securely  above  any  suspicion  of 
wilful  misstatement,  hasty  judgment  or  the  charge  of  being  dis- 
gruntled or  irresponsible  agitators. 

This  committee  presented  a  careful  and  thorough  report  which 

attracted  wide  attention,  not  only  locally,  but  generally.     Its 

recommendations  are  of  a  searching  character. 

Perhaps  its  most  striking  recommendation  was 
Graft  Report  r  „ 

to  the  effect  that  a  law  should  be  enacted  making 

it  a  crime  for  any  newspaper  to  publish  as  news 

"  any  matters  for  which  compensation  is  directly  or  indirectly 
paid,  or  agreed  to  be  paid,  unless  the  fact  that  such  compensa- 
tion has  been  paid  or  agreed  to  be  paid  is  indicated  by  some 
plainly  distinguishing  mark  next  the  news  so  printed.  The  jury 
or  judge  should  be  given  liberal  power  of  inferring  complicity 
from  considerations  indirectly  given.  A  person  paying  such  com- 
pensation should  be  permitted  to  recover  the  consideration  given 
by  him,  and  immunity  granted  him,  if  he  disclose  the  crime.  A 


68  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

part  of  the  punishment  should  consist  in  forbidding  the  publica- 
tion of  the  paper  for  a  period  fixed  by  the  judge." 

It  also  urged  that 

"  laws  should  be  enacted  for  the  cancellation  of  franchises  pro- 
cured by  fraud  or  crime  of  the  owners  of  the  franchises,  or  of 
their  predecessors  in  interest.  These  laws  should  be  of  a  civil 
nature,  cognizable  in  a  court  of  equity,  so  that  the  extreme  tech- 
nicality of  our  criminal  procedure  will  not  embarrass  their  en- 
forcement. The  mayor  and  the  district  attorney,  each  on  his 
own  motion,  should  have  the  right  to  initiate  such  proceedings 
in  the  name  of  the  municipality  upon  which  the  fraud  has  been 
committed.  Their  power  should  be  concurrent  with  that  of  the 
state  to  take  similar  action  in  quo  warranto  proceedings." 

The  commission  pointed  out  that  the  trial  of  Mr.  Calhoun  had 
disclosed  that  a  considerable  number  of  citizens  who,  when  ex- 
amined under  oath  as  to  their  qualifications  for  jury  service,  com- 
placently declared  that  they  would  not  convict  a  man  for  bribery 
however  convincing  the  facts,  if,  since  his  crime,  he  had  success- 
fully broken  a  strike  which  was  threatening  his  investments.  As 
the  committee  trenchantly  said,  a  system  of  public  education 
which  produces  such  men  holding  such  views  must  be  radically 
defective  in  both  its  ethical  and  political  teaching.  It  declared: 

"  It  is  believed  that  no  child  should  be  permitted  to  leave  the 
grammar  school  until  he  has  had  thoroughly  instilled  into  him  a 
strong  sense  of  his  obligation  to  the  state  to  set  aside  all  preju- 
dice or  private  interest  and  act  as  juryman  in  any  case  in  which 
he  may  be  summoned.  He  should  be  taught  that  this  obligation 
is  sacred,  and  that  its  performance  is  the  highest  kind  of  public 
service,  outranking  the  mere  physical  courage  and  devotion  of  a 
soldier." 

Among  the  other  recommendations  of  the  San  Francisco  com- 
mission is  one  to  the  effect  that  non-partisan  municipal  elections 
should  be  established,  that  there  should  be  a  separate  tribunal  of 
a  personal  character  for  the  judicial  determination  of  the  rates 
and  charges  of  municipal  utilities,  for  the  cancellation  of  fran- 
chises procured  by  fraud,  and  that  the  law  of  evidence  should  be 
so  changed  as  to  compel  corporations  to  give  evidence  against 
themselves. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  69 

Mayor  Gaynor  has  not  only  sought  to  eliminate  graft  and  the 
causes  of  graft,  but  to  create  a  public  sentiment  that  would  be  in-  , 
tolerant  of  it  in  any  form.     As  a  part  of  his 
An  Ephebic  Oath  efforts  in  thjs  directionj  he  delivered  an  address 

before  the  graduating  class  of  the  college  of  the  city  of  New 
York,  the  members  of  which  showed  their  appreciation  of  the 
appeal  to  their  public  spirit  by  addressing  to  the  Mayor  the  fol- 
lowing letter  containing  an  anti-graft  oath  which  each  and  every 
one  signed: 

"  College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  June  24,   ipio.     Mayor 

William  J.  Gaynor,  Dear  Sir: 

"  We,  the  members  of  the  Class  of  June,  1910,  of  the  College 
of  the  City  of  New  York,  commenced  our  civic  lives  yesterday 
morning.  We  were  fortunate  on  that  occasion  to  listen  to  an 
address  by  you,  the  mayor  of  our  city,  in  which  you  earnestly 
appealed  for  our  conscientious  participation  in  public  affairs.  To 
assure  you  that  your  advice  was  not  in  vain,  we,  the  under- 
signed, do  this  day,  after  the  manner  of  the  Athenian  youths  of 
old,  about  to  enter  public  life,  take  this  Ephebic  oath,  that: 

"  We  will  never  bring  disgrace  to  this  our  city  by  any  act  of 
dishonesty  or  cowardice,  nor  ever  desert  our  suffering  comrades 
in  the  ranks;  that  we  will  fight  for  the  ideals  and  sacred  things 
of  the  city,  both  alone  and  with  many;  that  we  will  revere  and 
obey  the  city's  laws  and  do  our  best  to  incite  a  like  respect  and 
reverence  in  those  who  are  prone  to  annul  or  set  them  at  naught ; 
that  we  will  strive  unceasingly  to  quicken  the  public's  sense  of 
public  duty ;  that  thus,  in  all  these  ways,  we  will  transmit  this  city, 
not  only  not  less,  but  greater,  better  and  more  beautiful  than  it 
was  transmitted  to  us." 

Legislation  to  stop  grafting  is  the  order  of  the  day  in  many  sec- 
tions of  the  country,  and  an  anti-graft  league  has  been  proposed, 
but  more  important  still  than  even  these  efforts, 

imPortant  thouSh  they  may  be»  is  the  Persistent 
effort  made  on  the  part  of  public-spirited  men 
to  arouse  the  public  conscience  and  create  a  public  sentiment 
strongly  and  vigorously  opposed  to  grafting  of  all  sorts  and  con- 
ditions. Governor-elect  Woodrow  Wilson,  of  New  Jersey,  has 
been  in  the  forefront  of  this  effort.  In  one  of  his  addresses  he 
declared : 


TO 

"  Guilt  is  personal  and  individual.  When  law  is  violated  some- 
one directs  the  violation  and  someone  carries  it  out.  Corpora- 
tions have  no  souls  and  no  minds.  They  have,  however,  officers 
and  directors,  and  these  are  responsible  for  policies  and  methods. 
These  have  minds  and  bodies,  and  nothing  human  is  alien  to 
them. 

"  To  fine  a  corporation  is  to  fine  stockholders  and  perhaps 
bondholders;  to  fine  the  ultimate  consumers  who  buy  the  output 
of  the  corporation.  They  are  innocent  of  corporate  wrongdoing, 
and  could  not  prevent  it  in  any  case.  Punish  the  dummy  director, 
and  the  species  will  disappear.  Punish  the  active  law-breaker 
who  abuses  his  power  and  the  confidence  of  the  investors  and  the 
public,  and  he  will  acquire  wholesome  respect  for  the  law  and  his 
obligations  under  it. 

"  Of  course,  laws  must  be  just,  reasonable  and  enforceable. 
Where  they  are  not,  public  sentiment  will  inevitably  nullify  them. 
But,  having  made  sure  of  the  morality,  the  honesty,  the  soundness 
of  a  law,  and  having  decided  to  make  it  effective,  the  way  to  do 
that  is  to  deal  always  with  individuals  and  natural  persons,  to 
make  responsibility  personal.  Whatever  the  crime,  the  offence, 
*'  seek  the  man '." 

Colonel  Roosevelt  has  also  been  of  great  service  in  driving 
the  issue  home.  As  he  declared  at  Pittsburgh: 

"  The  men  who  hurt  Pittsburgh  are  those  who  are  corrupt,  not 
those  who  hunt  out  corruption.  We  can  afford  to  differ  in  poli- 
tics, but  such  differences  must  be  between  honest  men.  When 
it  is  one  of  honesty  then  we  should  all  stand  together.  I  know  of 
no  party  lines  when  I  deal  with  crooks.  If  I  have  to  make  a  dis- 
tinction I  will  cinch  the  crook  of  my  own  party  first  because  I 
feel  a  responsibility  for  him,  but  I  will  also  cinch  the  other  crook 
as  soon  as  I  can." 

When  this  spirit  takes  hold  of  the  American  people  we  may 
look  for  an  era  of  honesty  and  economy  and  eventually  effi- 
ciency. That  this  spirit  is  taking  hold  has  been  demonstrated  in 
more  than  one  direction,  not  alone  in  the  defeat  of  men  who  were 
responsible  for  corrupt  conditions,  and  not  alone  in  the  conviction 
of  those  who  had  participated  in  graft,  but  in  a  sounder  public 
sentiment,  a  sounder  tone  in  public  life.  There  has  been  an  en- 
couraging multiplication  of  the  agencies  working  in  this  direction. 
The  bureaus  of  municipal  research  have  been  in  the  forefront 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOOD-RUFF  71 

in  the  way  of  securing  and  publishing  accurate  knowledge  con- 
cerning the  situation.  They  are  bringing  about  a  healthful  change 
of  attitude  in  the  treatment  of  these  questions.  Under  the  old 
regime  denunciation  was  the  chief  stock  in  trade.  The  one  who 
could  hurl  the  greatest  number  of  opprobrious  epithets  at  a  wrong- 
doer or  at  an  opponent,  was  regarded  as  the  most  sincere  and 
successful  reformer.  All  this  is  changing.  In  its  place  we  find 
the  careful  investigation  of  facts,  the  equally  careful  formulation 
of  charges,  and  their  persistent  pressing  before  the  proper 
tribunals,  leaving  to  the  public  to  apply  their  own  designation  to 
the  facts  after  they  are  presented  to  them  in  a  clear-cut,  impartial, 
effective  way,  by  those  who  know  what  they  are  talking  about. 

Another  factor  in  the  creation  of  sound  public  sentiment  is  to 
be  found  in  the  increasing  effectiveness  of  the  literature  put  out 
by  civic  bodies.  The  day  of  the  formal,  poorly- 
printed  report  or  pamphlet  is  passing  rapidly. 
Now  the  highest  sort  of  skill  is  exercised  in  so  placing  the  issues 
before  the  people  that  they  can  easily  inform  themselves  about 
them.  The  reports  of  civic  and  business  bodies  are  illustrations 
of  the  highest  skill  in  the  presentation  of  facts.  Moreover  the 
movement  has  been  greatly  assisted  by  the  increase  of  publica- 
tions, weekly  and  monthly,  devoted  to  the  enunciation  of  sound 
principles  and  the  elucidation  of  pertinent  facts.  Some  of  these 
publications  are  issued  by  the  cities  themselves.  Many  are  issued 
by  civic  bodies. 

As  illustrating  how  effective  the  work  of  voters'  leagues  may 
be  made,  we  may  cite  the  following:  For  years  the  Minnesota 
legislature  was  dominated  by  an  organization  of  the  most  unpro- 
gressive  politicians.  These  men  saw  that  the  publication  of  the 
story  of  the  Minnesota  legislature  of  1909,  with  its  complete;,un- 
answerable  exposure  of  the  personnel  and  purposes  of  the 
machine,  would  end  their  political  careers.  When  he  first  saw  a 
copy,  a  representative  from  one  of  the  interior  counties,  one  of 
the  worst  offenders,  was  moved  to  exclaim,  "  I  think  it  is  an 
outrage  that  a  man  is  allowed  to  print  and  circulate  such  a  thing. 
The  man  seems  to  be  demented,  but  he  goes  on  indiscriminately 
assassinating  character."  This  man's  fears  were  fully  realized. 
He  was  defeated  for  re-election  and  with  him  there  fell  prac- 


72 

tically  every  member  of  the  old  organization  through  which  the 
special  interests  and  politicians  dictated  legislation.  In  the  words 
of  the  report  of  the  Minnesota  Citizens'  League,  "  In  all  thirty- 
one  such  senators  and  representatives  either  did  not  dare  to  face 
their  records  or  did  so  and  were  defeated  at  the  primaries." 

The  social  phases  of  the  municipal  question  are  receiving  an 
ever-increasing  amount  of  attention,  in  some  places  almost  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  political  and  administrative 
Social  Phases  phases.  No  small  part  of  this  tendency  is  due  to 
the  changing  standards  of  efficiency  and  perspective.  As  Dr. 
Arthur  Newsholme,  the  medical  officer  of  the  English  Local 
Government  Board,  has  pointed  out,  a  careful  study  of  infant 
mortality  makes  it  clear  that  it  is  greatest  under  urban  life, 
which  under  ordinary  circumstances  is  more  destructive  for  chil- 
dren than  for  adults.  The  high  infantile  mortality  in  the  counties 
of  Glamorgan,  Durham,  Lancashire,  the  West  Riding,  Stafford- 
shire, and  the  low  infant  mortality  in  the  counties  of  Oxford, 
Hereford,  Berkshire  and  Dorset  are  ascribable  in  his  judgment 
chiefly  to  the  fact  that  in  the  former  the  population  lives  in  houses 
which  are  closely  massed  to  a  preponderant  extent  in  large  vil- 
lages, or  in  small  or  large  towns;  while  in  the  latter  the  houses 
are  largely  scattered  in  lonely  homesteads,  hamlets,  and  small 
villages.  It  is  not  that  any  special  virtue  appertains  to  the  sani- 
tary authorities  of  these  rural  counties ;  it  is  rather  that  the  sani- 
tary authorities  of  the  counties  having  high  infant  mortality  have 
not  realized  that  the  risks  of  urbanization  can  only  be  obviated 
by  strenuous  and  continued  effort  on  their  part.  That  they  can 
be  overcome,  that  there  is  no  necessary  association  between  dense 
massing  of  population  on  a  small  horizontal  area  and  a  high  in- 
fant mortality,  is  shown  by  the  exceptional  experience  of  the 
Peabody  Buildings.  These  dwellings  are  occupied  by  families 
whose  average  earnings  are  under  22  shillings  a  week.  They  have 
eight  times  as  many  persons  to  the  acre  as  London  as  a  whole, 
and  yet  in  the  years  from  1905  to  1909  the  infant  mortality  in 
them  was  23  per  cent  lower  than  that  of  London. 

Substantially  the  same  may  be  said  concerning  American  ex- 
perience. 

Trinity  Corporation  in  New  York  City  has  made  a  compre- 


hensive  study  of  its  New  York  tenements,  and  has  adopted  a 
policy  which  will  serve  not  only  as  a  correction  of  the  difficulties 
and  evils  that  have  grown  up  in  past  years,  but  as  a  striking  ex- 
ample of  effective  dealing  with  the  important  question  of  housing. 
Our  growing  foreign  population  constitutes  another  factor  in 
the  development  of  the  social  phases  of  the  municipal  problem. 
Some  idea  of  the  importance  of  this  particular 

aspect  may  be  gathered  from  the  statement  that 
Population  \     , &.  >T 

37  per  cent  of  the  population  of  New  York,  47 

per  cent  of  Fall  River,  Mass. ;  45  per  cent  of  Lawrence,  Mass. ; 
42.6  per  cent  of  Manchester,  N.  H. ;  46.4  per  cent  of  Passaic, 
N.  J.,  and  44.4  per  cent  of  Woonsocket,  R.  I.,  to  mention  only  a 
few  typical  cases,  are  foreign-born.  Moreover  organizations  like 
the  bureau  of  municipal  research,  the  federations  of  women's 
clubs,  and  the  educational  associations,  are  giving  their  thought 
and  attention  to  social  questions  to  a  degree  that  is  making 
mightily  for  a  wider  appreciation  of  the  need  for  more  attention, 
to  these  questions.  James  P.  Heaton,  in  discussing  the  social 
aspect  of  city  economy  in  The  Survey,  expresses  himself  as 
follows : 

"  That  the  city  government  plays  the  most  important  part  in  the 
plans  for  social  betterment  may  be  little  thought  of  by  most 
people,  but  it  is  increasingly  recognized  by  various  organizations 
interested  in  special  phases  of  social  work.  Each  year  their 
directing  officials  scrutinize  most  carefully  the  municipal  activi- 
ties, in  so  far  as  these  affect  their  particular  fields." 

There  has  been  a  concerted  effort  during  the  past  year  to  de- 
stroy what  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  white-slave  traffic.  This 

traffic  in  women  it  is  charged,  to  use  the  Ian- 
White  Slavery       guage  of  Judge  o>Sullivan  of  the  Court  of  Gen. 

eral  Sessions,  New  York,  follows  two  main  objects:  first,  the 
procuring  of  women  of  previous  chaste  character,  who  through 
force,  duress  or  deceit  are  finally  made  to  live  lives  of  prostitu- 
tion ;  second,  the  procuring  of  women  who  are  already  prostitutes' 
and  placing  them,  with  their  consent,  in  houses  where  they  may 
ply  their  trade. 

The  grand  jury  appointed  by  Judge  O'Sullivan,  after  carefully 


74  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

investigating  the  situation  in  New  York  and  reporting  upon  the 
conditions  as  it  found  them,  recommended : 

"  i.  That  no  effort  be  spared  in  bringing  to  justice  the  so- 
called  '  pimp '.  When  the  character  and  prevalence  of  these 
creatures  are  more  fully  realized  and  public  sentiment  aroused 
regarding  them,  the  inadequate  punishment  now  imposed  should 
be  increased  and  every  legitimate  means  devised  and  put  into  exe- 
cution to  exterminate  them. 

"  2.  That  the  existent  laws  be  more  rigidly  enforced  to  safe- 
guard the  patrons  of  the  moving-picture  shows,  and  that  parent^ 
and  guardians  exercise  more  careful  supervision  over  their  chil- 
dren in  connection  with  their  attendance  upon  these  shows. 

"  3.  That  vigorous  efforts  be  made  to  minimize  the  possibility 
of  the  Raines-law  hotel  becoming  a  disorderly  house,  and 
that  where  necessary  proper  supervision  and  inspection  looking 
towards  that  end  be  provided. 

"4.  That  the  so-called  massage  and  manicure  parlors  be  put 
under  the  control  of  the  health  department;  that  a  license  from 
this  department  be  required  for  their  operation;  that  certificates 
be  granted  to  operators  only  by  some  approved  medical  authority, 
and  that  proper  measures  be  taken  to  enforce  these  laws. 

"  5.  That  the  laws  relating  to  prostitution  in  apartment  and 
tenement  houses  be  rigidly  enforced,  and  that  the  present  law  be 
supplemented  if  necessary. 

"  6.  That  a  commission  be  appointed  by  the  mayor  to  make 
a  careful  study  of  the  laws  relating  to  and  the  methods  of  dealing 
with  the  social  evil  in  the  leading  cities  of  this  country  and  of 
Europe,  with  a  view  to  devising  the  most  effective  means  of  mini- 
mizing the  evil  in  this  city." 

This  investigation  and  these  recommendations  have  had  a  far- 
reaching  effect.  Throughout  the  country  there  has  been  an  in- 
telligent effort  to  grapple  with  and  overcome  the  grave  dangers 
incident  to  the  spread  of  the  social  evil. 

There  has  been  little  new  legislation  in  the  matter  of  the  con- 
trol or  regulation  of  the  liquor  problem  in  cities,  but  there  has 
been  a  very  considerable  amount  of  intelligent 
liquor  Problems  Discussion  of  the  question  both  among  public 
officials  and  students.  Speaking  generally,  there  seems  to  be 
some  reaction  against  state-wide  and  enforced  prohibition,  due 
to  the  difficult  situations  created  by  such  a  policy  in  many  com- 
munities. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  75 

A  decision  of  far-reaching  importance  that  deserves  mention 
in  this  connection  was  that  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois 
in  the  case  of  United  States  of  America,  appellant,  vs.  Lewis 
Hrasky,  appellee,  in  which  the  court  held  that  a  person  who  has 
knowingly  and  habitually  violated  the  Sunday-closing  law  of  the 
state  had  not  behaved  "  as  a  man  of  good  moral  character  "  and 
as  one  who  was  "  well  disposed  to  the  good  order  of  the  people." 
Consequently  the  appellee,  who  it  was  conceded  had  followed  the 
general  practice  of  saloon  keepers  in  East  St.  Louis,  and  had 
persistently  sold  liquor  on  Sunday  contrary  to  the  law,  was  held 
to  be  an  undesirable  citizen  and  as  such  not  entitled  to  be  natur- 
alized. The  court  in  its  opinion  declared: 

"  It  is  essential  to  the  safety  and  perpetuity  of  government 
that  laws  should  be  observed  and  enforced  until  repealed.  The 
decision  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Sunday  closing  statute  rests 
with  the  legislature  and  not  with  the  courts.  As  long  as  it  is 
the  law  it  should  be  observed.  The  courts  should  not  be,  and  as 
a  rule  are  not,  charged  with  executive  or  legislative  functions, 
but  they  are  charged  with  the  responsibility  of  deciding,  when  the 
question  is  properly  presented,  that  a  law  is  in  force  even  if  it  is 
not  observed  by  all  citizens  or  enforced  by  all  public  author- 
ities." 

In  police  matters  the  complete  exoneration  by  the  Cleveland 
Civil  Service  Commission  of  Chief  of  Police  Kohler  on  every  ac- 
cusation made  against  him,  is  deserving  of 
mention  in  view  of  the  prominence  which  he  has 
attained  by  reason  of  his  efficient  administration  of  his  depart- 
ment and  the  introduction  of  some  radical  ideas  in  regard  to 
arrests.  Following  his  reinstatement,  Chief  Kohler  once  more  put 
in  practice  his  "  golden  rule  ",  declaring  to  his  force  that  by-gones 
were  by-gones,  that  he  cherished  no  enmity  against  detectives 
who  testified  against  him,  and  that  each  man's  job  was  secure  so 
long  as  he  delivered  the  goods.  Another  interesting  event  in 
police  matters  during  the  year  was  Mayor  Gaynor's  letter  to  his 
new  commissioner  of  police,  in  which  he  outlined  plans  and  poli- 
cies that  should  be  subserved  in  the  management  and  control  of 
a  great  metropolitan  police  force.  It  constitutes  a  substantial 
addition  to  police  literature,  and  helps  to  clarify  the  situation  not 


76  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

only  in  New  York  but  elsewhere.  Even  though  one  may  not 
agree  with  all  of  his  conclusions,  it  is  the  sincere  effort  of  an 
honest  man  to  state  clearly  and  effectively  the  principles  which 
should  be  followed  in  administering  the  police  force  and  exe- 
cuting the  great  mass  of  sumptuary  laws  which  have  found  their 
way  onto  the  statute  books  of  the  city  and  state. 

Organizations  of  business  men  are  giving  more  and  more  at- 
tention to  municipal  problems.  They  are  beginning  to  realize;  what 

has  so  often  been  pointed  out  in  the  meetings 
The  Interest  of  f  th  National  Municipal  League,  that  good 
Business  Men 

government  is  about  the  best  asset  a  city  can 

have.  During  the  last  decade  Detroit  has  enjoyed  a  remarkable 
growth,  as  shown  by  the  census  figures.  During  the  ten-years' 
period  her  growth  was  63  per  cent,  which  is  a  more  rapid  rate  of 
increase  than  is  shown  by  any  other  city  of  similar  size.  The 
population  figures  for  Detroit  are  465,766.  In  1900  she  was  the 
I3th  in  the  order  of  American  cities ;  to-day  she  probably  stands 
in  the  8th  place.  Pittsburgh's  gain  during  the  same  period  was 
18,2  per  cent;  Milwaukee's,  31  per  cent;  St.  Louis',  19.4  per  cent. 

Various  reasons  have  been  assigned  for  this  remarkable  and 
substantial  growth,  but  as  the  Chicago  News  said  at  the  time  the 
figures  were  announced,  the  part  played  by  the  progressive  busi- 
ness organizations  and  the  influence  of  conditions  of  municipal 
government  must  not  be  overlooked.  Detroit's  organizations 
have  worked  hard  for  the  upbuilding  of  their  community.  The 
reputation  of  the  city  for  efficiency  of  government  and  for  econ- 
omy and  honesty  in  public  expenditures  is  good  as  compared  with 
American  municipalities  generally.  The  efforts  of  Pingree  to 
promote  honest  government  in  Detroit  doubtless  are  responsible 
to  a  considerable  degree  for  the  present  industrial  progress  of 
the  city.  It  is  significant  that  the  cities  reputed  to  have  the  worst 
municipal  government,  are  not  in  the  judgment  of  the  News,  the 
ones  showing  the  most  rapid  growth.  Manufacturers  who  are 
not  in  search  of  special  privileges  naturally  establish  themselves 
in  cities  having  the  most  economical  government  and  furnishing 
the  best  living  conditions  for  the  working  population. 

Another  interesting  development  of  the  last  year  has  been  the 
disposition  shown  by  the  smaller  chambers  of  commerce  and 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  77 

boards  of  trade  in  cities  ranging  in  size  from  12,000  up  to  50,000, 
to  take  up  civic  work  and  to  employ  competent  and  trained  men 
to  carry  it  on.  At  the  recent  meeting  of  the  commercial  secre- 
taries in  Grand  Rapids,  one  of  the  speakers  urged  that  the  asso- 
ciation unite  with  the  National  Municipal  League  in  broadening 
the  civic  service  work.  He  stated  that  the  movement  would 
receive  greater  impetus  and  accomplish  greater  results  if  the 
business  men  as  represented  in  the  commercial  organizations  were 
behind  it.  He  furthermore  suggested  that  the  national  associa- 
tion take  up  this  matter  and  employ  a  secretary  to  devote  his  time 
and  efforts  to  the  work,  an  expert  who  would  go  about  the  coun- 
try promoting  civic  work  in  the  various  communities  and  in  the 
boards  of  trade  and  other  commercial  organizations. 

In  the  words  of  one  of  the  officials  of  one  of  the  most  effective 
business  organizations  in  the  country: 

"  There  is  a  growing  tendency  to  give  city  work  a  more  im- 
portant place  in  their  scheme  of  things  than  it  has  had.  I  do  not 
know,  however,  that  this  is  a  development  of  the  past  year.  Rather 
it  seems  to  me  to  be  a  development  extending  over  even  four 
or  five  years  in  most  cases  and  even  longer  in  such  exceptional 
cases  as  that  of  the  Cleveland  Chamber  of  Commerce.  Prophe- 
sying is  a  dangerous  business,  but  I  would  not  be  surprised  to 
have  some  of  these  business  organizations  soon  officially  announce 
that  they  consider  civic  work  the  most  important  with  which  they 
have  to  deal." 

There  has  been  organized  in  Chicago  a  Women's  City  Club 
which  is  destined  to  become  a  most  influential  civic  body.    The 
formation  of  this  club  is  typical  of  the  interest 
n  eres  o  Q£  women  jn  cjvjc  affairs>    We  find  them  tak- 

ing up  questions  of  housecleaining  and  adorn- 
ment and  education  in  an  effective  way.  Indeed  women  are  com- 
ing to  realize  that  they  can  even  more  effectively  than  men  in  many 
instances,  create  the  civic  standards  of  a  community  through 
close  contact  with  the  growing  agents  and  through  influence  over 
the  teaching  forces  of  a  community,  and  to  feel  that  they  are 
charged  in  a  special  sense,  because  of  their  special  qualifications 
in  the  matter  of  housekeeping,  with  the  cleanliness  of  a  commu- 
nity. The  work  which  Mrs.  Caroline  Bartlett  Crane  is  doing  is 


78  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

equally  typical.  She  is  going  about  the  country  stirring  up  the 
women,  and  the  men  for  that  matter,  to  their  duty  and  responsi- 
bilty  in  the  matter  of  clean  and  healthy  cities.  Her  lectures  are 
those  of  a  public  housekeeper,  simple  and  untechnical.  She  has 
visited  city  after  city  in  the  east  and  west,  looking  into  nooks  and 
crannies  and  into  various  things  that  men,  with  their  far  different 
point  of  view  and  perspective,  are  apt  to  overlook.  As  an  out- 
sider she  has  been  able  to  report  upon  what  she  found  without 
fear,  favor  or  partisanship.  At  the  close  of  her  inspections  she 
has  written  out  full  reports  and  submitted  them  to  the  bodies 
directly  concerned,  with  suggestions  how  to  overcome  the  condi- 
tions which  she  described. 

Boston  has  a  Women's  Municipal  League  which  has  been 
conducting  a  campaign  of  education  in  sanitary  matters  and  work- 
ing in  co-operation  with  various  settlements  to  relieve  conditions 
in  the  congested  parts  of  the  city.  Moreover  it  has  charged  itself 
with  the  inspection  of  streets  and  alleys.  In  December  last  it 
held  an  exhibit  which  on  the  sanitary  side  showed  contrasting 
models  of  dirty  and  clean  markets,  and  clean  dairies  and  dirty 
ones.  Moreover  it  is  actively  spreading  a  propaganda  in  regard 
to  the  prevention  and  cure  of  tuberculosis  and  similar  dread  dis- 
eases. 

The  Rochester  Conference  on  City  Planning  was  a  distinct 
step  forward  in  the  solution  of  one  phase  of  the  municipal  prob- 
.  lem.  The  appearance  of  this  phrase  "  city  plan- 

ning" in  our  vocabulary,  although  of  recent 
origin,  is  significant  of  the  changed  attitude  of  civic  workers 
toward  the  problem  they  are  attacking.  It  connotes  intelligent 
forethought  and  definite  effort.  Although  but  recently  intro- 
duced into  the  vocabulary,  it  has  already  been  given  an  enlarged 
meaning.  At  first  including  only  plans  relating  to  the  physical 
side  of  the  city's  development,  it  has  now  come  to  mean  not  only 
this,  but  far  more.  It  includes  planning  for  the  intellectual  and 
the  moral,  the  industrial,  the  commercial  and  the  economic  de- 
velopment of  the  city,  as  well  as  the  physical. 

As  Frederick  Law  Olmsted,  Jr.,  in  the  opening  paper  pointed 
out: 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  79 

"  The  complex  unity,  the  appalling  breadth  and  ramification  of 
real  city  planning  is  being  borne  in  upon  us  as  never  before,  and 
one  of  the  main  purposes  of  such  a  conference  as  this  is  to  assist 
workers  in  all  the  different  parts  of  this  complex  field  to  under- 
stand these  inter-relationships  more  clearly.  The  idea  of  city 
planning  is  one  in  which  all  these  activities — all  the  plannings  that 
shape  each  one  of  the  fragments  that  go  to  make  up  the  physical 
city — shall  be  so  harmonized  as  to  reduce  the  conflict  of  pur- 
poses and  the  waste  of  constructive  effort  to  a  minimum,  and 
thus  secure  for  the  people  of  the  city  conditions  adapted  to  their 
attaining  the  maximum  of  productive  efficiency,  of  health  and  of 
enjoyment  of  life." 

Mr.  Olmsted  outlined  three  divisions,  which  in  the  main,  were 
observed  in  the  program:  The  first  concerns  circulation;  the 
construction  and  treatment  of  the  spaces  devoted  to  streets,  rail- 
ways, water-ways,  and  all  means  of  transportation  and  commu- 
nication. The  second  main  division  includes  public  properties 
and  the  third  consists  of  all  that  remains  in  private  ownership, 
which  is  subject  to  public  control  in  several  ways.  Naturally  the 
question  of  congestion  came  in  for  very  considerable  attention 
and  there  was  a  diversity  of  views  that  was  most  illuminating 
and  showed  the  necessity  for  such  a  conference  among  workers 
in  the  field. 

Lawrence  Veiller,  the  Secretary  of  the  new  National  Housing 
Association,  advanced  the  view  that  there  can  be  no  hard  and  fast 
rule  as  to  the  number  of  people  living  on  a  given  area  because 
so  many  conditions  enter  into  the  question  of  proper  housing. 
He  laid  stress,  however,  on  the  fact  that  the  overcrowding  in 
foreign  quarters  of  large  cities  is  due  to  the  desire  for  wealth. 
The  foreigner  comes  to  America  as  the  "  land  of  promise ", 
and  for  at  least  the  first  ten  years  dreams  of  going  back  to  his 
fatherland  wealthy,  so  he  denies  himself  proper  housing  in  order 
that  he  may  save  more  money.  This  difficulty  can  be  done  away 
with  by  instilling  into  the  minds  of  these  foreigners  higher  ideals. 
Dr.  Marsh,  on  the  other  hand,  maintained  that  the  causes  of  con- 
gestion of  population  were  economic  and  administrative,  and 
largely  the  outcome  of  a  system  of  laisses  faire,  and  that  to  the 
extent  to  which  the  causes  of  congestion  are  economic  the  reme- 
dies must  be  economic,  in  so  far  as  the  causes  are  administrative 


80  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

they  must  be  prevented  by  agents  in  administrative  measures  and 
"  since  congestion  is  primarily  the  result  of  protected  privilege 
and  exploitation,  the  police  power  of  the  state  must  be  extended 
and  enlarged  to  deal  with  those  whose  exploitation  is  in  any  way 
responsible  for  the  evil  of  congestion  with  all  the  human  suffering, 
physical  deterioration  and  moral  danger  which  congestion  pro- 
motes and  connotes." 

Following  this  suggestion  Dr.  Frederick  C.  Howe  declared 
that : 

"  Without  any  reservation,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  orderly  and  symmetrical  building  of  cities  and  the  housing  of 
urban  population  can  be  corrected  through  the  taxation  of  land 
values  more  easily  and  more  fundamentally  than  in  any  other 
way.  By  the  taxation  of  land  values  I  mean  the  abandonment  of 
all  taxes  now  levied  against  houses,  buildings,  improvements  of 
all  kinds,  machinery,  goods,  stock  in  trade  and  personal  prop- 
erty of  every  kind  and  description,  and  the  dropping  of  all  local 
taxes  on  the  value  of  the  land.  I  do  not  mean  that  we  shall  tax 
land,  but  rather  the  rental  value  of  land.  In  other  words,  that  all 
the  revenues  of  the  city  shall  be  taken  from  the  ground  or  land 
rent  as  it  is  commonly  done  by  private  individuals,  under  the 
ground-rent  system,  in  the  business  centers  of  our  large  cities." 

The  Ninth  International  Housing  Congress  was  held  at  Vienna. 
There  have  been  already  eight  such  congresses,  to  wit,  Paris, 
1889;  Antwerp,  1894;  Bordeaux,  1895;  Brussels,  1897;  Paris, 
1900 ;  Dusseldorf ,  1902 ;  Leige,  1905,  and  London,  1907.  Among 
th'e  subjects  considered  at  the  Vienna  Congress  were  town  plan- 
ning; house  building;  the  cottage  vs.  the  block;  cost  of  dwell- 
ings ;  the  land  question ;  housing  inspection ;  housing  finance  and 
taxation ;  all  of  which,  in  some  form  or  other,  appeared  upon  the 
programme  for  the  Rochester  meeting. 

That  the  advanced  civic  workers  of  the  old  world  and  the  new 
are  considering  this  whole  problem  of  city  planning,  and  are 
approaching  it  from  substantially  the  same  point  of  view  affords 
an  indication  of  the  progress  of  the  past  decade,  as  also  does 
the  growing  literature  on  the  subject.  Within  the  year  there 
have  been  published  two  important  books :  one  on  "  Town  Plan- 
ning," by  H.  Inigo  Triggs,  the  other  on  "Town  Planning  in 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  8l 

Practice,"  by  Raymond  Unwin,  and  on  April  ist  the  first  issue 
of  the  "  Town  Planning  Review  "  made  its  appearance  under  the 
auspices  of  the  University  of  Liverpool. 

Boston's  bitter  and  hard-fought  mayoralty  election  terminated 
in  the  choice  of  John  F.  Fitzgerald,  a  former  mayor,  by  a  ma- 
jority of  1,223  over  his  nearest  opponent, 
James  J.  Storrow,  a  former  recent  president 
of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  chairman  of 
the  School  Board.  Fitzgerald's  vote  was  46,968  and  Mr.  Stor- 
row's  45,745.  Fitzgerald,  the  first  mayor  under  the  new  Boston 
plan,  will  serve  for  four  years  unless  recalled  at  the  end  of  the 
second  year  of  his  term.  His  powers  have  been  greatly  increased, 
and  if  he  serves  the  full  four  years  he  will  control  the  expendi- 
ture of  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars. 

Under  the  new  charter  he  discharges  functions  similar  to  those 
performed  by  the  New  York  Board  of  Estimate  and  Apportion- 
ment in  that  he  prepares  the  budget,  Section  3  of  the  charter 
reading, 

"  All  appropriations  other  than  those  for  school  purposes  to  be 
met  from  taxes  revenue,  or  any  source  other  than  loans,  shall 
originate  with  the  mayor,  who  .  .  .  shall  submit  to  the  council 
the  annual  budget  of  the  current  expense  of  the  city  account- 
ing and  may  submit  thereafter  supplementary  budgets  until  such 
a  time  as  the  tax  rate  for  the  year  shall  have  been  fixed." 

The  great  power  of  the  mayor  over  finances  and  the  city's  em- 
ployees is  safeguarded,  on  the  one  hand,  by  stringent  civil  ser- 
vice provisions  with  a  separate  and  independent  review  on  the 
part  of  the  state  civil  service  commission  so  far  as  the  heads  of 
departments  are  concerned;  and  on  the  other  hand  by  the  exist- 
ence of  a  finance  commission  appointed  by  the  governor  of  the 
state. 

Fitzgerald's  former  administration  was  marked  by  many  scan- 
dals which  were  investigated,  reported  upon  and  proved  by  the 
original  Finance  Commission,  which  was  mainly 

Independent  responsible  for  the  new  charter.  The  election 
Sentiment  _ 

was   the   first   conducted   on    the   non-partisan 

basis.    It  so  happened  that  both  Fitzgerald  and  his  nearast  op- 


82  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  II>EA 

ponent,  Mr.  Storrow,  were  Democrats  in  national  politics.  The 
fact  that  Hibbard,  who  had  been  the  Republican  mayor,  and  who 
two  years  previously  had  received  38,000  votes,  received  this 
year  only  1,783,  would  indicate  that  Boston  has  greatly  increased 
the  number  of  its  voters  who  were  willing  to  disregard  national 
party  lines  in  municipal  elections.  Indeed  the  large  vote  given 
to  Mr.  Storrow  must  be  construed  as  striking  evidence  of  the 
growth  of  the  independent  sentiment  in  Boston.  This  fact,  and 
the  further  fact  that  the  council  (of  nine)  seems  to  be  composed 
of  men  in  general  sympathy  with  the  progressive  movement  in 
the  city,  furnish  the  encouraging  features  of  the  situation. 

Mr.  Storrow  represented  the  elements  interested  in  a  new 
Boston,  but  unfortunately  the  impression  was  created  by  his  own 
advocates,  and  naturally  fostered  by  his  opponents,  that  he  was 
a  very  superior  person  and  represented  a  "caste"  rather  than 
the  common  people.  Fitzgerald,  on  the  other  hand,  claimed  to 
be  the  people's  friend.  As  the  Philadelphia  Ledger  pointed  out : 

"  This  is  probably  the  real  secret  of  the  failure  of  the  reform 
campaign.  There  was  too  much  assumption  of  superior  virtue. 
If  we  insist  prematurely  on  separating  the  sheep  from  the  goats, 
the  goats  are  very  likely  to  outvote  the  sheep.  Fitzgerald,  in  all 
probability,  is  not  nearly  so  black  as  he  is  painted.  He  is  evi- 
dently an  able  man ;  but  elected  by  a  small  plurality  and  with  an 
antagonistic  council,  he  seems  less  likely  to  do  any  harm  than  to 
fail  in  positive  accomplishment.  For  this  reason,  and  because 
he  is  not  really  in  sympathy  with  the  purposes  of  the  new  system, 
the  Boston  experiment  does  not  start  upon  the  most  hopeful 
basis." 

Of  the  men  elected  to  the  new  council  at  the  same  election  five 
were  first-rate  men,  one  was  regarded  as  personally  honest,  al- 
though associating  with  doubtful  companions ;  one  was  dangerous, 
and  two,  though  not  thoroughly  undesirable,  were  not  depend- 
able. It  is  rather  surprising  to  find  that  a  city  boasting  of  its 
civic  achievements,  as  Boston  is  sometimes  inclined  to  do,  should 
elect  on  a  ticket  at  large  a  man  so  dangerous  to  the  new  muni- 
cipal idea  as  Curley. 

Mayor  Fitzgerald,  in  his  inaugural  address,  gave  utterance  to 
some  views  which  led  to  the  belief  that  he  felt  the  movement 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  83 

toward  new  politics  and  that  he  would  attempt  to  embody  the 
new  municipal  ideas  in  his  administration.  Nevertheless  after 
the  expiration  of  ten  months  it  must  be  conceded  that  the  impres- 
sion made  by  his  inaugural  address  is  losing  force  and  he  is 
not  doing  as  well  as  some  anticipated  he  would. 

His  weekly  paper,  Tha  Republic,  is  again  filling  up  with  the 
advertisements  of  those  who  do  business  with  the  city.  Dances 
are  being  run  for  the  purposes  of  assessing  city  employees  by 
means  of  the  sale  of  tickets.  While  some  of  his  appointments 
have  been  first  rate,  others  of  his  appointments  have  been  of  a 
low  grade,  although  the  city  has  been  saved  from  the  results  of 
them  through  the  operation  of  the  civil  service  provisions  of  the 
new  charter  already  described.  In  fact,  the  mayor,  with  his  won- 
derful facility  for  turning  even  adverse  conditions  to  his  advan- 
tage, has,  so  it  is  alleged  by  those  in  close  touch  with  the  situation, 
turned  the  rejection  of  his  candidates  to  his  advantage.  He  has 
nominated  to  important  offices  men  whom  he  knew  could  not 
pass  the  muster  of  even  less  exacting  officials  than  the  present 
members  of  the  civil  service  board.  In  this  way  he  has  been 
saved  the  shame  and  disgrace  of  such  men  occupying  public 
places.  At  the  same  time  he  has  satisfied  his  appointees  of  his 
good-will  and  intention,  saying  in  effect  to  them  that  he  had  done 
what  he  could,  but  that  the  civil  service  board  had  stood  in  his 
way.  In  practical  politics  this  proves  almost  as  effective  as  secur- 
ing the  offices. 

Boston's  best  contribution  during  the  past  year  has  been  the 
application  of  the  principle  of  federal  union,  to  many,  in  fact 
nearly  all  the  scattered  efforts  towards  social 
Co-operation  development  in  the  city.  This  has  come  about 
through  the  "  Boston  1915 "  movement,  the 
Boston  Social  Union  (a  settlement  federation),  the  United  Im- 
provement Association,  and  the  comprehension  in  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  of  all  the  business  organizations  in  the  city.  This 
movement  will  have  two  very  important  results.  It  will  tend 
strongly  to  build  up  a  real,  organically  sane  and  sound  community 
life,  which  will  inevitably  express  itself  much  more  wholesomely 
in  its  political  and  municipal  aspect.  In  the  second  place,  it  is 
bringing  forward  some  of  the  rear  detachmants  of  well-meaning 


84 

but  negative  citizenship  which  in  due  time  will  be  enough  substan- 
tially and  permanently  to  throw  the  balance  of  power  in  the  direc- 
tion of  better  things. 

Chelsea,  Massachusetts,  has  had  a  remarkable  experience.  The 

valuation  of  its  property  in  1907  was  $26,411,450.    The  fire  of 

that  year  caused  a  loss  in  assessable  valuation 

of  $5,539,050,  and  the  valuation  in  1908  was 

$20,872,400.    On  April  i,  1910,  this  had  risen  to 

$25,720,100,  a  gain  of  87  per  cent  of  the  fire  loss  in  three  years. 

After  the  fire  great  numbers  of  people  either  left  the  city  or 

planned  to  leave  and  the  population  was  estimated  at  26,000.    The 

United  States  Census  figures  for  this  year  show  the  population  to 

be  32,456,  a  gain  of  6,456  in  less  than  two  years'  time.    The  city 

gained  but  6,163  m  the  ten  years  following  the  census  of  1890. 

Chelsea's  government  in  practical  working  constitutes  a  striking 
example  of  the  prompt  and  efficient  dispatch  of  city  business. 
The  application  of  advanced  methods  has  obtained  and  harmony 
has  been  secured  in  the  management  of  its  affairs.  The  commis- 
sion in  charge  acting  as  a  whole  decides  upon  all  questions  of 
policy,  makes  all  appointments,  including  the  members  of  the 
school  committee,  and  appropriates  all  moneys.  The  commis- 
sion, however,  was  appointed  by  the  governor,  and  there  is  a 
wholesome  demand  on  the  part  of  the  people  that  the  commis- 
sion be  made  elective,  so  that  they  will  represent  the  electors 
directly. 

These  Chelsea  incidents  are  cited  to  show  the  wonderful  re- 
cuperative power  of  American  communities.  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted, however,  that  with  all  the  public  spirit  that  has  been 
shown,  and  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  it,  the  opportunity  was 
not  utilized  of  rebuilding  the  city  upon  a  new  civic  plan.  Such 
an  opportunity  does  not  often  present  itself  to  an  eastern  city; 
but  the  commission  failed  to  utilize  the  opportunity,  justifying  its 
action  on  the  ground  that  such  a  plan  might  be  feasible  in  a 
wealthy  community,  but  not  in  Chelsea,  which  was  regarded  as  a 
poor  community. 

A  writer  in  the  Boston  Common,  however,  asks  with  pertinence, 

"  Is  the  rebuilding  of  the  city  on  the  old  plan  the  course  of 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  85 

economy?  Brookline  is  a  beautiful  village,  not  because  it  is 
wealthy;  it  is  wealthy  because  it  is  a  beautiful  city,  which  fact 
has  attracted  wealth  to  it.  As  to  the  financial  incompetency  of 
Chelsea,  one  is  almost  led  to  see  a  shadow  of  inconsistency  in  the 
city's  policy  of  constructing  a  highly-expensive  municipal  build- 
ing after  refusing  to  expend  money  for  a  project  which  would 
in  the  end  bring  more  real  prosperity.  Chelsea's  experience  under 
her  present  government  may  well  serve  as  an  example  of  what 
may  be  done  in  the  way  of  developing  business  efficiency  in  city 
government,  but  one  cannot  help  regretting  that  the  opportunity 
for  setting  aloft  a  civic  plan  that  would  be  an  example  to  all  New 
England,  was  allowed  to  pass.  One  cannot  help  but  wonder  when 
Massachusetts  is  to  have  a  genuinely  modern  city  built  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  most  advanced  ideas  of  civic  planning  if  she 
could  not  obtain  one  when  she  had  a  state-appointed  commission 
endowed  with  wide  powers  set  to  the  task  of  restoring  an  ob- 
literated city."  * 

Although  very  little  significance  can  possibly  be  attached  to 

the  spring  elections  in  New  England,  there  is  this  much  to  be 

said,  that  the  issues  involved  have  been  entirely 

New  England        apart  from  national  politics,  and  they  have  been 

determined  without  reference  to  them.  In  fact 
Elections 

in  most  of  the  New   England  states  there  is 

really  no  connection  between  national  and  local  politics.  In  most 
cities  there  is  a  general  tendency  toward  improvement  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  the  average  citizen  is  giving  more  thought 
to  city  matters  than  he  has  been  accustomed  to  do  in  the  past 
At  the  same  time  it  must  be  admitted  that  New  England  com- 
munities taken  at  large  are  making  less  progress  than  their  sister 
cities  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  in  the  far  west. 

New  York's  progress  had  already  been  commented  upon  in  an- 
other connection  in  this  review.    It  has  bean  steady,  substantial 

and  encouraging.  It  represents  the  new  muni- 
Problem  c*Pa^  ^ea>  *n  ^e  °Pmi°n  °*  many>  New  York 

to-day  is  one  of  the  most  progressive  cities  in 
the  world.  Professor  S.  D.  Adshead,  of  Liverpool  University, 
in  a  recent  address  on  "  Standards  of  Public  Efficiency,"  declared 
himself  to  this  effect,  although  he  did  not  overlook  the  gravity  of 
New  York's  situation,  especially  in  the  matter  of  congestion.  In 

1  Oswald  Ryan  in  the  Boston  Common. 


86 

this  acute  observer's  opinion  the  solution  of  the  New  York  prob- 
lem lies  in  the  removal  of  all  factories  and  businesses  out  of  the 
restricted  area  of  Manhattan  wherever  they  can  be  carried  on 
elsewhere;  the  encouragement  in  every  possible  way  of  the  con- 
struction of  more  arterial  lines  of  communication,  particularly 
by  subway,  and  the  opening  of  all  undeveloped  and  desirable 
building  land  within  twenty  miles  of  the  city  by  constructing  new 
lines  of  communication  and  so  decentralizing  the  city,  and  at  the 
same  time,  but  not  before,  to  enforce  stringent  and  restrictive 
measures  on  the  use  of  land  in  Manhattan. 

Buffalo  is  organizing  for  a  civic  advance.  The  Chamber  of 
Commerce  and  Manufacturers'  Club  has  fathered  and  prosecuted 
an  important  investigation  by  a  citizens'  investi- 
gating committee  of  the  methods  in  vogue  at  the 
City  Hall,  especially  in  the  Department  of  Public 
Works.  The  friends  of  commission  government  have  organized 
the  Commission  Government  Association  of  Buffalo,  which  is 
carrying  on  an  active  and  vigorous  propaganda.  The  Municipal 
League  undertakes  to  examine  the  record  of  public  officials  and 
to  report  upon  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  electors.  A  Corrupt 
Practices  Association  is  assisting  in  procuring  a  new  state  law 
on  the  subject.  The  Referendum  League  and  the  Direct  Nomi- 
nations Association  are  both  active.  There  have  been  sundry 
improvements  along  social  and  political  lines.  The  Buffalo  Polish 
Survey  conducted  for  six  months  an  intensive  study  of  the  Polish 
population  situation  in  Buffalo.  The  work  was  done  by  highly 
competent  men  and  has  attracted  more  than  local  attention.  The 
Buffalo  Seminar  is  an  association  of  about  100  people,  mostly, 
volunteers,  who  have  studied  with  much  care  the  social  conditions 
of  Buffalo.  The  Buffalo  Social  Workers'  Club  has  been  organ- 
ized. This  consists  of  about  100  paid  social  workers  who  hold 
monthly  dinners. 

These  various  organizations  are  at  the  present  working  each  in 
its  respective  field  without  thought  of  co-operation  or  co-ordina- 
tion. It  is  to  be  hoped  that  in  time  they  will  see  that  they  are 
parts  of  a  greater  whole  and  will  come  together  in  some  sort  of 
federation,  as  have  similar  organizations  in  Boston  for  the  em- 
phasizing of  the  community  idea  and  the  advancement  of  the 
new  municipal  idea  in  all  departments  of  city  life. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  87 

The  same  general  observations  may  be  made  with  regard  to 
Albany,  although  the  development  there  has  so  far  been  less  ex- 
tensive and  less  marked.  Nevertheless,  as  a  result  of  the  civic 
revival  of  last  spring  there  is  a  general  awakening  of  public  in- 
terest. 

In  Syracuse  the  marked  events  of  the  year  have  been  along 
material  lines.     There  have  been  no  upheavals 
Progressive  Qf  pOpuiar  opinion  in  relation  to  governmental 

Syracuse  .  I  ,  *_,  .... 

,     .  xp ,pn?$|  methods,  and  no  special  disposition  to  try  muni- 
cipal experiments.    Nevertheless,  in  the  words  of  one  observer: 

"  If  I   were  to  make  any  comment  upon  the  municipal  changes 
in  this  city  within  recent  years,  I  should  inevitably  be  attracted 
to  the  increase  of  the  functions  which  the  municipal  government 
here  is  being  called  upon  to  perform.    The  extension  of  the  work 
of  the  various  departments  into  which  our  city  government  is 
divided,  is  such  as  to  attract  attention.     It  brings  the  people 
closely  in  touch  with  their  government  and  is  a  step  towards  se- 
curing that  interest  in  municipal  affairs  among  the  voters  and 
residents  of  the  town  without  which  municipal  government  will 
not  improve  however  perfect  may  be  its   framework.     When 
municipal  government  performed  for  its  citizens  comparatively 
few  functions  and  these  having  but  little  to  do  with  the  ordinary 
run  of  people,  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  "  plain  voter  " 
would  give  time,  attention  and  thought  to  the  selection  of  men 
to  fill  public  offices.    To-day,  however,  municipal  government  in 
this  city  supplies  water  to  the  citizen ;  educates  his  children  with 
kindergarten,  primary  and  high  schools;  it  removes  his  garbage; 
cleans  his  streets;  quarantines  his  home  for  diseases  with  which 
it  formerly  had  nothing  to  do ;  it  examines  his  children  and  insists 
that  they  shall  be  in  proper  physical  condition  before  it  admits 
them  to  school ;  it  compels  him  to  submit  his  building  plans,  his 
plans  for  plumbing,  his  plans  for  electrical  lighting  for  its  ap- 
proval; it  insists  upon  sanitary  keeping  of  his  premises;  it  fur- 
nishes parks  and  children's  playgrounds  and  provides  concerts 
for  his  amusement  and  it  removes  from  him  his  family  if  he  is 
tubercular,  and  in  a  thousand  and  one  ways,  it  makes  itself  felt 
in  the  lives  of  each  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city.     It  cannot 
then  but  be  expected  that  the  municipal  government  will  be  a 
vital  matter  to  each  of  the  voters  and  that  these  voters  will  take 
an  interest  in  it  which  they  did  not  feel  when  its  functions  were 
less  extended." 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  of  practically  all  the  cities  of  New 


88 

York  State,  that  a  decided  improvement  is  taking  place  in  each 
one  of  them,  prompted  by  a  strengthening  and  developing  public 
sentiment.  This  improvement  is  manifested  in  the  aims  and 
methods  of  municipal  government.  There  is  less  partisanship. 
Corrupt  practices  are  gradually  being  eliminated ;  a  business  ad- 
ministration of  municipal  affairs,  having  regard  to  the  general 
welfare  rather  than  to  special  and  favored  interests,  is  more  and 
more  becoming  the  rule  of  municipal  administration.  There  are 
many  evils  yet  to  be  amended,  but  the  progress  is  hopeful. 

In  Philadelphia  a  taxpayer's  committee  on  city  finances  has 
been  organized  with  a  view  to  ascertaining,  through  a  temperate 

and  impartial  presentation,  a  final  and  absolute 
Philadelphia's  definition  of  the  laws  relating  to  the  finances  of 
Taxpayers'  ^  cit  jo  present  the  matter  properly  to  the 

Committee  .          f  ^       •  .     r 

court  the  numerous  transactions  of  the  city  for 

the  past  three  years  have  been  examined  and  analyzed  by  able 
legal  and  expert  talent.  The  evidence  as  presented  as  a  result 
of  this  examination  shows  in  round  figures  the  following  alleged 
misuse  and  shortage  of  funds : 


Proceeds  of  bond  sales  for  current  expenses $12,500,000 

Unpaid  bills  for  1910  incurred  without  appropriation 1,000,000 

Shortage  in  lawful  appropriations  to  schools 1,600,000 

Shortage  in  revenue  for  1910  over  lawful  requirements...  6,000.000 


These  items  total $21,100,000 

In  addition  to  this  it  is  averred  that  many  millions  of  dollars 
have  been  paid  out  by  the  city  treasury  for  work  and  supplies 
furnished,  without  any  contract  or  previous  appropriation  there- 
for, a  practice  most  dangerous  to  the  interest  of  the  taxpayers, 
resulting  in  extravagant  expenditures,  furnishing  opportunity  for 
fraud,  and  which  has  already  been  declared  illegal  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Pennsylvania. 

A  case  involving  the  facts  has  been  argued  and  decided  in  favor 
of  the  committee  by  the  lower  court.  It  will  be  appealed  to  the 
Supreme  Court,  in  order  to  have  a  definite  and  authoritative  set- 
tlement of  the  question  at  issue. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  89 

Pittsburgh  is  in  the  midst  of  a  campaign  for  civic  reform 

which  will  require  several  years  more  to  work  out.    It  began  with 

graft  exposures  upon  which  is  based  a  demand 

Pittsburgh  £or  revjsion  Of  the  charter,  already  referred  to, 

and  followed  by  a  movement  in  behalf  of  civic  betterment  along 
many  lines.  The  voters'  league  made  the  graft  exposures,  and 
the  other  civic  and  commercial  bodies  at  once  took  hold  with  the 
league  in  an  effort  to  get  the  greatest  permanent  benefits  from 
the  exposures. 

Wilmington,  Delaware,  has  been  passing  through  a  very  pe- 
culiar and  undesirable  experience.  After  the  election  in  June, 
1909,  the  Republican  candidates  for  treasurer  and 
for  city  council  in  one  of  the  wards  received  cer- 
tificates of  election.  Their  elections,  however,  were  contested 
on  the  ground  of  fraud  in  one  election  precinct  where  nearly  all 
the  voters  were  negroes.  The  cases  were  tried  before  the  city 
council,  which  decided  in  favor  of  the  Democratic  candidates. 
This  decision  was  concurred  in  by  the  Republican  minority  as 
respects  the  city  treasurer,  but  not  as  to  the  member  of  council, 
they  admitting  that  the  frauds  proved  were  enough  to  overcome 
the  small  majority  that  the  returns  had  given  the  city  treasurer, 
but  had  not  been  enough  to  overcome  the  larger  majority  the 
Republican  candidate  for  council  had  received.  The  Republican 
incumbent  appealed  to  court  on  the  ground  that  in  consequence  of 
blunders  at  the  legislative  session  of  1907  there  had  been  no  legal 
election  in  1909.  After  holding  the  matter  for  nearly  a  year,  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State,  by  a  vote  of  three  to  two,  dividing 
on  party  lines,  decided  that  there  had  been  no  legal  election  and 
therefore  those  two  officers  are  holding  office  on  the  ground  that 
they  continue  because  there  has  been  no  election  for  their  suc- 
cessors. The  court  moreover  expressed  itself  to  the  effect  that 
the  present  councilmen  are  de  facto  councilmen  and  that  so  far 
as  their  acts  are  not  disputed  they  may  be  regarded  as  valid. 

Richmond's  council  has  adopted  an  ordinance  prohibiting  city 
officials  from  receiving  or  agreeing  to  receive  any  compensation 
for  services  rendered  in  relation  to  any  pro- 
ceeding or  other  matters  in  which  the  city  of 
Richmond  is  interested.    This  grew  out  of  a  vicious  practice  and 


go  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

marks  the  beginning  of  an  era  of  enlightened  public  sentiment  on 
a  subject  of  considerable  importance.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  other 
cities,  in  the  north  as  well  as  in  the  south,  will  follow  the  pre- 
cedent thus  established.  A  healthy  sentiment  in  favor  of  muni- 
cipal betterment  prevails  in  Norfolk,  where  the  local  ring  has  met 
a  number  of  significant  reverses. 

Civic  conditions  in  Wheeling,  West  Virginia,  have  taken  a  de- 
cidely  favorable  trend,  and  the  city  is  feeling  the  good  effect  of 

the  awakening  of  civic  consciousness  which  is 
Wheeling  sweeping  over  the  country.  Two  years  ago  it 

got  rid  of  an  antiquated  charter  granted  by  the  Virginia  legisla- 
ture in  1836,  and  inaugurated  a  more  modern  plan  of  city  gov- 
ernment in  a  charter  which  made  a  long  step  towards  centraliza- 
tion of  power  and  reduction  in  the  number  of  elective  officers.  A 
large  advance  has  also  been  made  by  the  city  government  in  the 
preservation  of  public  health,  the  health  department  being  espec- 
ially efficient.  Added  to  these  things,  good  work  has  been  done 
by  public  movements  which  have  resulted  in  the  formation  of 
the  Wheeling  Playground  Association,  the  Associated  Charities 
and  the  Anti-Tuberculosis  League.  In  all  these  efforts  the  busi- 
ness men,  both  as  individuals  and  in  their  organized  capacity, 
have  taken  a  leading  part. 

In  Raleigh  the  reform  ticket,  as  opposed  to  the  office-holding 
organization  ticket,  was  successful  with  a  single  exception.  While 

the  fight  has  been  largely  one  for  offices,  as  the 

office-holding  crowd  adopted  several  of  the 
planks  of  the  reform  element,  yet  the  successful  candidates  repre- 
sent that  sentiment  in  Raleigh  which  believes  in  more  advanced 
municipal  ideas.  From  the  personnel  of  the  successful  ticket, 
the  president  of  the  Good  Government  Association  being  one  of 
the  successful  candidates,  it  looks  as  if  there  would  be  some  ad- 
vanced municipal  legislation  prepared  for  submission  to  the  next 
legislature,  and  a  very  material  improvement  in  the  matter  of 
administration. 

At  the  Cleveland  primary  election  held  May  i7th,  there  were 
Cleveland  fifty-nine  candidates  for  thirty  offices  to  be  filled. 

Of  the  thirty  nominated  only  three  failed  to 
receive  the  approval  of  the  Cleveland  Municipal  Association. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  91 

At  the  election  in  November,  when  these  thirty  candidates  were 
voted  upon,  in  only  one  instance  where  the  association  indicated  a 
choice  as  between  candidates  was  a  candidate  elected  who  was  not 
recommended  by  the  Association.  Although  the  Democrats  had  a 
sweeping  victory  in  Ohio,  Governor  Harmon's  plurality  in  Cuya- 
hoga  county  being  18,000,  the  Republican  ticket,  most  of  whom 
received  the  approval  of  the  Municipal  Association  on  the  ground 
that  they  had  shown  efficiency  in  office  and  that  a  permanent 
tenure  in  office  was  especially  desirable,  was  elected  by  majorities 
ranging  from  2,000  to  11,000.  Although  the  association  does 
not  claim  the  credit  for  all  of  this,  its  recommendations  evidently 
carried  great  weight  with  the  large  independent  vote  in  the  county. 
Chicago's  municipal  election  in  April  last  illustrated  again,  if 
that  were  necessary,  the  independence  of  that  community.  For 
fifteen  years  the  Municipal  Voters'  League,  to 
quote  The  Survey,  has  put  Chicago  in  the  lead 
of  all  American  cities  in  the  movement  to  emancipate  city  gov- 
ernment from  partisan  exploitation  and  inefficiency.  Strictly 
confining  itself  to  securing  the  nomination  of  honest  and  capable 
aldermen  to  the  city  council,  the  league  has  steadily  succeeded 
in  raising  the  council's  personnel  and  policy.  When  it  began  not 
more  than  one-fifth  of  the  aldermen  were  regarded  as  either 
honest  or  efficient.  For  several  years  two-thirds  of  them  have 
been  reputable,  and  a  fair  proportion,  men  of  ability.  During 
the  last  five  years,  under  the  influence  of  the  league,  a  majority 
of  the  aldermen  have  agreed  to  constitute  the  standing  com- 
mittees of  council  on  the  basis  of  efficiency  without  regard  to 
party.  Of  all  candidates  in  thirty-five  wards  only  six  con- 
demned by  the  league  were  elected  and  twenty  whom  the  league 
endorsed  were  victors.  The  council,  consisting  of  seventy  alder- 
men, contains  forty-two  endorsed  by  the  league.  Two-thirds  of 
the  aldermen  pledged  their  support  to  non-partisan  nominations 
to  the  council  committees. 

There  is  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  whether  the  con- 
tinued success  of  the  Municipal  Voters'  League  or  the  investi- 
gation made  by  the  Merriam  Commission  is  the  more  important 
event  of  the  year  in  Chicago.  From  the  broad  point  of  view, 
the  persistency  of  the  success  following  the  efforts  of  the  league 


92  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

would  seem  to  constitute  that  the  most  important.  On  the  other 
hand,  disclosures  of  gross  favoritism  and  waste  of  public  funds 
in  connection  with  city  purchases  and  public-works  contracts  is 
most  wholesome.  The  Citizens'  Association  has  actively  co- 
operated with  the  Merriam  Commission  in  its  investigation  and 
has  carried  on  some  of  the  prosecutions. 

In  Detroit  the  voters  gave  a  majority  of  10,782  for  the  local 
Municipal  League's  civil  service  charter  amendment.  There  were 
16,315  votes  cast  for  it  and  5,533  against.  Its 
municipal  ownership  amendment  was  not  sub- 
mitted to  the  voters  because  of  the  delay  on  the  part  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Michigan  in  passing  upon  the  matter.  William 
B.  Thompson,  Democrat,  was  elected  mayor  by  about  5,000  votes 
against  Proctor  K.  Owens,  Republican.  The  league's  attack 
upon  Owens  crystallized  the  opposition  sentiment  Outside  of 
the  mayor,  the  city  and  county  tickets  were  strongly  Republican. 
The  entire  Republican  legislative  ticket  was  elected,  and  Charles 
S.  Osborn,  Republican,  was  elected  governor  by  over  40,000  ma- 
jority. 

Milwaukee  surprised  the  country  in  April  last  by  electing  a 
Socialist  mayor  and  a  Socialist  municipal  legislature.  Undue 

significance  to  this  must  not  be  given,  however, 
Milwaukee  •  <         «  .   •  ,         ,. 

inasmuch  as  the  result  is  the  outcome  of  peculiar 

local  conditions.  The  Democratic  administration  has  been  notor- 
iously corrupt  and  inefficient  and  the  Republicans  hopelessly  di- 
vided. As  a  consequence  the  people  of  Milwaukee  have  mani- 
fested, at  times,  a  considerable  degree  of  independence,  and  have 
turned  to  the  Socialists  for  relief.  While  it  is  true  some  Social- 
ists are  claiming  the  election  as  a  vindication  of  their  principles 
in  national  and  international  politics,  nevertheless  the  declaration 
that  Mayor  Seidel  made  just  before  assuming  office,  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  conservative  counsels  would  prevail,  and  that 
the  successful  candidates  appreciated  the  grave  responsibilities 
resting  upon  their  shoulders  and  that  their  duties  were  primarily 
municipal.  Here  are  some  of  the  things  the  mayor  shortly  after 
his  election  said: 

"There  will  be  no  Utopia,  no  millennium,  none  of  the  world 
antics  that  our  opponents  have  charged  to  us.  There  will  be  no 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  93 

party  bosses,  no  one-man  policy.  When  we  decide  upon  a  course 
to  pursue  there  will  be  conferences  with  the  other  Socialists 
elected,  and  the  best  line  will  be  followed. 

"  Socialism  has  been  given  a  chance  to  show  its  merit.  We  can 
do  that  by  insistent  and  consistent  conservatism. 

"  I  find  that  the  great  question  that  seems  to  trouble  business 
men  is  what  will  be  done  in  relation  to  the  local  street  car  situa- 
tion. 

"  We  propose  to  have  cleaner  cars,  no  overcrowding,  streets 
sprinkled  between  the  tracks,  and  we  hope  for  a  three-cent  fare. 
We  will  do  nothing,  however,  that  is  not  for  the 
Socialist  best  interest  of  the  whole  city,  and  when  any 

Platform  matter  relating  directly  to  the  people  of  the  city 

comes  up  which  the  Social-Democrat  officials 
believe  should  not  be  decided  by  themselves,  there  will  be  refer- 
endum to  the  people. 

"  Business  men  need  have  no  fears.  We  shall  do  nothing  con- 
trary to  good  government  to  alienate  the  splendid  support  given 
us  by  men  in  all  walks  of  life  on  Tuesday. 

"  The  first  step  of  the  Social-Democrat  Party  will  be  to  re- 
assure the  people  and  relieve  their  minds  of  any  fear  that  our 
victory  means  an  entire  overturning  of  present  business  condi- 
tions. The  talk  of  war  on  the  business  interests  of  the  city  is  like 
the  other  wild  tales  that  the  old  party  leaders  have  told  the  peo- 
ple would  result  from  our  success. 

"  We  are  not  planning  to  do  anything  to  injure  the  best  inter- 
ests of  the  city.  It  is  true  that  we  have  many  plans  for  the  im- 
provement of  conditions.  We  shall  make  the  corporations  pay 
their  share  of  the  taxes  and  shall  improve  the  condition  of  the 
laboring  men  of  the  city.  But  we  will  not  do  anything  revolu- 
tionary. That  would 'turn  sentiment  so  strongly  against  us  that 
we  would  not  even  accomplish  the  good  that  we  can  by  being  con- 
servative." 

Six  months  is  scarcely  enough  time  for  an  administration  to 

demonstrate  its  ability  to  make  good  its  election  pledges.    At  the 

same  time  the  Socialists  have  done  quite  a  little 

in  the  way  of  carrying-out  their  anti-election 
Undertakings  .  J  .  ,  J  _ 

promises  and  platform.     For  instance,  all  the 

public  purchasing  is  being  reduced  to  a  system  by  the  establish- 
ment of  a  purchasing  department  in  charge  of  a  competent  pur- 
chasing agent,  and  an  effort  is  being  made  to  put  this  service 
on  as  nearly  a  scientific  basis  as  possible.  Workingmen's  homes 
are  being  provided  for  through  a  scheme  of  city  planning  and 


94  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

plotting.  Bonds  have  been  issued  and  a  site  selected  for  a  civic 
center.  Under  the  new  policy  at  least  one  street  car  franchise 
has  been  drawn  and  accepted  by  the  company  on  terms  that  pro- 
vide for  public  ownership  of  street  car  lines  without  a  cent  of 
cost  to  the  city.  Action  has  been  begun  by  the  city  attorney  to 
recover  $72,000  from  the  street  car  companies  for  unpaid  licenses 
accumulated  during  ten  years.  The  old,  inefficient  board  of 
public  works  has  been  abolished,  and  in  its  place  has  been  estab- 
lished a  single  commissioner.  Unnecessary  employees  have  been 
dismissed  and  their  places  have  not  been  filled.  Wages  of  the 
binder  girls  and  employees  of  the  public  library  and  museum 
have  been  raised  and  conditions  improved.  A  new  policy  in  the 
matter  of  dealing  with  the  corporations  has  been  inaugurated. 
The  administration  writes  franchises  for  the  city,  dictates  terms 
and  submits  them  to  the  corporations  for  their  approval,  instead 
of  having  the  corporations  dictate  to  the  city.  In  the  words  of  a 
member  of  the  National  Municipal  League,  they  are  regarded 

"  as  more  enlightened  as  to  town  plan,  expert  service,  and  busi- 
ness methods  than  any  city  fathers  we  have  ever  had.  There  is 
no  dislike  for  them,  and  they  show  no  indication  of  socialism  in 
its  objectionable  forms  in  the  city  hall.  They  have  been  handi- 
capped by  the  deficit  of  the  Rose  regime,  but  are  doing  very  well 
in  spite  of  it.  They  may  be  said  to  be  making  good  to  a  marked 
degree  because  they  are  honest  and  economical  as  well  as  en- 
lightened as  to  city  affairs."  * 

Des  Moines  held  its  second  city  election  under  its  new  charter 
on  March  I4th.    The  primary  election  resulted  in  the  casting  of 
.  about  the  average  vote  for  state  elections  and 

resulted  in  the  polling  of  a  large  liberal  vote 
favoring  a  wide-open  town.  The  law  enforcement  element,  how- 
ever, had  five  of  the  ten  successful  candidates,  and  the  outcome 
at  the  final  election  was  that  the  more  conservative  element 
elected  the  mayor  and  two  councilmen  and  the  liberals  two  coun- 
cilmen  only.  The  present  mayor  was  formerly  professor  of  civics 

1  Later  developments  indicate  that  the  Socialist  administration  is  causing 
some  disappointment,  that  the  health  department  is  in  a  bad  mess,  and  that 
the  favorable  first  impressions  are  beginning  to  wear  off. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  95 

and  economics  in  the  Highland  Park  College,  and  is  regarded  as 
an  able  and  level-headed  man.  He  was  elected  by  a  majority  of 
sixteen  in  a  vote  of  over  15,000.  Two  of  the  old  commissioners 
who  had  given  good  service  were  re-elected.  The  question  of 
municipal  ownership  entered  into  the  contest,  the  new  mayor 
favoring  immediate  municipal  ownership  of  the  water-works  and 
ultimate  municipal  ownership  of  the  street  railway.  Both  of  these 
utilities  are  asking  for  extensions  of  their  franchises.  In  the 
judgment  of  a  local  observer  the  vote  and  the  "  interest  at  the 
final  election  were  both  up  to  the  standard  of  a  presidential  elec- 
tion, showing  the  Des  Moines  plan  of  municipal  government  is 
potential  in  arousing  citizens  to  their  interest  in  municipal 
affairs." 

Outside  the  inauguration  of  the  civil  service  system  already  re- 
ferred to,  Kansas  City  has  established  a  library  of  municipal 
facts,  which  promises  to  become  most  valuable, 
not  only  to  city  officials,  but  to  students  of  muni- 
cipal affairs.  A  competent  librarian  will  be  placed  in  charge  of 
the  library.  The  Kansas  City  Public  Utilities  Commission  has 
been  doing  very  good  work,  considering  the  limited  powers  vested 
in  it  by  the  charter.  The  City  Club  has  been  very  earnest  and 
active  in  its  work  the  past  year,  and  is  becoming  recognized  as 
an  influential  organization.  Among  other  important  matters  that 
it  has  considered  during  the  past  year,  has  been  the  establishment 
of  trade  schools. 

Mayor  Brown  is  proving  to  be  an  honest,  straight-forward  offi- 
cial, and  is  giving  the  city  a  clean,  business-like  administration. 
An  innovation  that  he  has  established  has  been 


f°rrnati°n  °f  a  mayor's  cabinet,  made  up  of 


the  heads  of  the  different  departments  of  the 
city  government.  This  cabinet  holds  regular  meetings  and  dis- 
cusses city  business,  with  the  result  that  the  departments  seem  to 
be  working  harmoniously  rather  than  at  cross-purposes. 

The  Board  of  Pardons  and  Paroles,  established  by  the  new 
charter,  is  doing  splendid  work  under  the  leadership  of  William 
Volker.  This  board  has  power  to  recommend  the  pardon  of  per- 
sons in  the  city  prison  or  workhouse.  Its  work  of  placing  pris- 
oners upon  their  good  behavior  and  in  granting  paroles,  has  been 


96  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

attracting  considerable  attention.  The  work  of  looking  after  de- 
linquent and  neglected  children  is  being  carried  on  intelligently 
here.  A  special  tax  levy  has  been  made  for  the  support  of  the 
McCune  Home,  which  will  furnish  that  institution  a  fund  of 
about  $60,000  a  year  indefinitely  for  the  erection  of  buildings  and 
improvement  of  the  plant.  This  institution  is  located  upon  a  farm 
of  100  acres  sixteen  miles  from  Kansas  City,  and  is  used  as  a 
home  and  school  for  the  younger  and  more  tractable  wards  of  the 
Juvenile  Court.  Under  the  direction  of  the  present  judge  of  the 
Juvenile  Court,  Judge  Porterfield,  a  fund  of  $60,000  has  just  been 
raised  for  the  erection  of  a  Boys'  Hotel,  where  working  boys 
who  receive  meagre  salaries  will  be  furnished  clean  rooms  and 
wholesome  food.  This  hotel  has  been  running  for  about  four 
years,  but  has  been  inadequately  housed.  The  matter  of  estab- 
lishing a  civic  center  of  municipal  buildings  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
proposed  new  Union  Station  is  being  discussed. 

At  the  last  session  of  the  Kentucky  Legislature  a  bill  was  passed 
to  abolish  the  old  Louisville  school  board  and  to  establish  for 
.    ...  ,  ^at  city  a  board  of  education  consisting  of  five 

School  Board  members  to  be  elected  for  a  term  of  four  years, 
to  have  complete  control  of  all  the  public 
schools.  The  board  has  power  to  name  the  superintendent  of 
schools,  to  have  charge  of  the  teachers  and  the  course  of  study, 
etc.,  and  will  also  elect  a  business  director  who  shall  have  charge 
of  the  construction  and  repair  of  buildings.  These  subordinates 
will  first  be  elected  for  a  term  of  one  year  and,  if  found  fit,  will 
then  be  elected  for  a  term  of  four  years,  but  may  be  removed  by 
the  board.  It  is  intended  to  take  the  schools  out  of  politics.  The 
members  of  this  board  are  voted  for  on  a  separate  printed  ballot 
without  any  party  device,  and  the  position  of  the  names  on  the 
ballot  will  be  determined  by  lot,  and  the  position  of  the  names 
will  be  changed  on  each  succeeding  hundred  ballots.  This  will 
be  almost  an  educational  qualification  for  the  voters.  The  Board 
of  Trade  and  the  Commercial  Club  and  the  Woman's  Club  and 
the  alumni  and  alumnae  of  the  high  schools  and  other  organiza- 
tions of  the  city  appointed  about  thirty  delegates  to  select  a  com- 
mittee of  seven  to  nominate  a  citizens'  ticket  of  competent  men 
irrespective  of  politics. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  97 

The  most  important  development  in  municipal  affairs  in  Ala- 
bama cities  is  the  growth  of  the  movement  for  commission  gov- 
ernment. The  question  has  been  submitted  to 
Alabama  Cities  the  vQters  Q{  severaj  cities>  notably  Birming- 
ham and  Montgomery,  and  has  been  endorsed  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority.  There  is  a  strong  demand  throughout  the  entire 
state  for  this  form  of  municipal  government.  The  legislature  will 
assemble  on  January  ist,  and  it  is  the  opinion  of  a  great  many 
people  who  are  well  informed  on  this  subject  that  the  legislature 
•will  adopt  a  general  law  for  the  administration  of  all  municipali- 
ties by  a  commission,  and  it  seems  to  be  the  opinion  that  this 
changed  form  of  government  will  be  put  into  effect  at  the  earliest 
opportunity. 

A  general  view  of  the  situation  for  Alabama  shows  great  muni- 
cipal activity  in  the  construction  of  municipal  works  and  improve- 
ments, and  the  census  returns  show  a  very  large  increase  in  popu- 
lation. The  greatest  increase  east  of  the  Mississippi  river  is 
the  city  of  Birmingham,  with  a  percent  of  245,  giving  a  total 
population  of  132,685. 

The  victory  for  municipal  democracy  in  Denver  was  one  of 
great  significance  and  against  enormous  obstacles.  The  water 
company  was  defeated  in  its  efforts  to  get  a 
iJenvers  new  f^nchis^  though  it  was  supported  by  both 

political  organizations.  A  municipal  system  was 
authorized.  The  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall  were 
adopted  over  the  opposition  of  both.  The  Citizens'  ticket  was 
elected  over  those  of  both  the  old-line  parties  operating  in  combi- 
nation, although  $400,000  was  spent  to  defeat  it,  and  it  had  only 
$1,500  and  neither  organization  nor  poll  workers.  All  through 
the  campaign,  in  which  Judge  Lindsey  was  active  and  tireless,  the 
Denver  Republican  declared  editorially  and  with  glaring  head- 
lines that  if  under  all  the  circumstances  the  Citizens'  ticket  were 
to  win  it  would  mean  that  the  people  of  Denver  endorsed  the 
truth  of  Lindsey's  book,  "  The  Beast  and  the  Jungle."  In  the 
words  of  The  Public: 

"  By  confession  of  his  local  enemies,  therefore,  the  truth  of 
Judge  Lindsey's  revelations  is  confirmed  by  the  people  of  the  city. 


98  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

The  completeness  of  the  defeat  which  the  bi-partisan  '  Beast '  has 
suffered  in  Denver,  and  the  intelligent  discrimination  of  the 
voters,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  every  referendum 
proposition  of  the  '  Beast '  which  the  citizens  opposed  was  de- 
feated by  from  5,000  to  10,000  majority,  while  every  one  that  the 
citizens  supported  was  carried  by  from  2,000  to  4,000  majority. 
In  securing  this  victory  the  women  voters  had  a  hand,  for  Den- 
ver is  in  Colorado  where  women  have  the  suffrage  and  use  it." 

In  Colorado  Springs  one  of  the  most  interesting  developments 
of  the  year  is  the  attitude  of  the  commissioners  towards  the  civil 
service  commission.  After  a  prolonged  strug- 
gle a  very  comprehensive  civil  service  ordinance 
was  passed  by  the  council,  and  took  effect  last 
March.  It  is  now  very  generally  felt  by  the  city  officials  that  the 
passage  of  this  ordinance  has  relieved  them  greatly  in  the  matter 
of  appointments,  and  that  they  would  be  truly  sorry  to  return  to 
the  old  system.  Although  the  charter  has  been  in  operation  for 
fourteen  months,  there  has  been  no  occasion  to  make  use  of  either 
the  initiative  or  the  referendum.  The  city  council  is  responsive  to 
public  wishes,  and  in  one  or  two  cases  where  action  was  taken 
which  caused  adverse  comment  of  weight,  the  council  rescinded 
its  action.  There  has  been  scattering  talk  of  recalling  the  mayor. 
The  affairs  of  the  municipality  are  being  managed  in  a  business- 
like and  efficient  manner,  and  politics  is  playing  a  very  minor  part 
in  the  proceeding. 

Reaction  has  been  the  characteristic  of  Seattle  in  local  affairs. 
The  administrations  of  Mayor  Ballinger  and  of  Mayor  Miller 
had  been  clean  and  the  administration  of  Mayor 
Moore,  which  intervened,  was  also  clean  for  the 
greater  part.  The  present  Mayor,  Gill,  is  an  old-fashioned 
politician  of  the  least  desirable  type.  His  only  opponent  was 
a  French-Canadian  whose  mastery  of  our  language  was  im- 
perfect and  whose  irritability  of  temper  and  suspicious  attitude 
made  it  impossible  for  persons  having  business  with  him  as 
a  member  of  the  board  of  public  works  to  get  along  with  him. 
So  unsatisfactory  has  been  the  administration  of  Mayor  Gill  that 
an  attempt  "  to  recall "  him  was  undertaken,  but  failed  for  tech- 
nical reasons. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  99 

Spokane  is  making  for  a  new  charter  and  a  comprehensive 
plan  of  city  improvements.  Some  idea  of  its  progressive  ten- 
dencies may  be  gathered  from  a  recital  of  the 
way  it  has  gone  about  securing  a  new  charter. 
At  an  "  Optimist  Dinner  "  given  by  seven  public-spirited  citizens 
in  January,  1909,  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  representative  citizens, 
one  or  two  leaders  having  been  invited  from  the  various  civic 
bodies,  labor  bodies,  business  interests,  professions,  and  the  like, 
the  matter  of  charter  revision  was  spontaneously  injected  into 
a  gathering  which  had  been  designed  exclusively  for  the  dissemi- 
nation of  parks  and  play-grounds  propaganda.  As  a  result,  the 
chairman  of  the  meeting,  which  followed  the  dinner,  was  dele- 
gated to  designate  ten  citizens  to  draft  amendments  to  the  city 
charter,  which  was  done  in  conjunction  with  the  city  council,  and 
the  amendments  submitted  to  the  voters  were  for  the  most  part 
approved.  They  were  designed  to  simplify  the  governmental 
machinery  of  the  municipality  and  to  fix  responsibility,  which 
theretofore  it  had  been  quite  impossible  to  do.  At  the  election 
which  followed  shortly,  a  council  was  elected  with  a  majority 
from  one  party,  and  a  mayor  from  the  other.  This  resulted  in  a 
lack  of  co-operation  and  harmony  between  the  two  branches  of 
the  city  government,  although  the  differences  have  not  been  on 
strict  party  lines,  and,  in  turn,  have  resulted  in  further  agitating 
the  public  demand  for  a  commission  form  of  government.  The 
Committee  of  Ten  having  completed  its  labors  and  been  discharged 
sometime  previously,  the  mayor,  no  doubt  being  actuated  by  a 
sincere  purpose  to  meet  the  apparent  trend  of  public  opinion,  ap- 
pointed a  Committee  of  Fifteen  to  draft  a  commission  form 
charter.  After  this  committee  had  gotten  to  work,  it  was  found 
that  the  law  provided  for  selection  of  such  a  committee  by  the 
voters.  Therefore,  September  27th  was  designated  as  the  date 
for  the  election  of  fifteen  citizens  for  the  purpose  of  drafting  a 
new  charter.  There  are  some  thirty-five  candidates,  made  up  of 
some  of  the  foremost  men  of  business,  the  professions,  labor,  and 
of  Socialism.  Practically  all  of  these  candidates  are  pledged 
to  the  commission  form  charter.  The  freeholders  elected  have 
gone  carefully  about  their  work  and  the  result  has  been  the 
formulation  of  an  up-to-date  instrument. 


I00  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

The  Bureau  of  Inspection  of  the  Merchants'  Association  has 
watched  all  the  city  outlays  where  great  improvements  are  being 
made  and  the  municipal  government  has  gener- 
San  Francisco  ajjy  gjven  a  willing  heed  to  the  corrections  which 
this  bureau  has  demanded,  where  the  contracts  were  not  being 
carried  out  in  full  accordance  with  the  specifications.  This  covers 
some  very  important  work  in  the  way  of  high-pressure  fire  pro- 
tection system  under  a  bond  issue  of  $5,200,000,  a  new  sewer  sys- 
tem under  a  bond  issue  of  $4,000,000,  a  garbage  disposal  plan 
under  a  bond  issue  of  $1,000,000  and  various  municipal  buildings 
renewed,  to  the  extent  of  $8,600,000. 

In  the  months  of  November  and  December,  1910,  Los  Angeles 
held  its  first  election  under  the  non-partisan  primaries  by  which 
the  vote  was  first  on  all  nominations  sent  in,  without  any  party 
designation  on  the  ballot,  and  then,  a  month  later,  on  the  two 
highest,  without  party  designation.  The  outcome  was  the  elec- 
tion, by  large  majorities,  of  an  entire  good  government  ticket 
which  gave  that  element  absolute  control  of  the  city  government 
for  the  ensuing  two  years.  These  officers  have  been  in  now 
nearly  a  year,  and  have  made  an  excellent  record  for  efficiency 
and  uprighteousness.  They  have  been,  if  anything,  ultra-conser- 
vative. Those  who  feared  radical  legislation,  and  for  that  matter 
those  who  hoped  for  original  reform  legislation,  have  both  been 
disappointed.  It  is  very  much  like  any  other  city  government 
except  that  it  is  more  efficient  and  there  is  absolute  confidence  in 
it.  Mayor  Alexander,  although  over  seventy,  is  making  a  splendid 
record  as  an  executive,  and  he  could,  in  the  judgment  of  keen 
observers,  be  elected  indefinitely  as  long  as  he  keeps  up  his  present 
activity. 

At  the  fall  election  a  year  ago,  the  voters  adopted  the  Muni- 
cipal League  plan  for  a  utilities  commission  of  three,  appointed 

by  the  mayor,  who  have  power  to  make  all  in- 
los  Angeles  ..     ..          ' 

vestigations  and  recommend  to  council  on  all 

matters  that  cover  the  relationship  of  the  utilities  and  the  citi- 
zen. This  commission  has  proven  most  effective.  It  reported 
advising  the  lowering  of  the  electric  lighting  rate  from  nine  cents 
to  seven,  which  was  adopted  by  council,  but  contested  by  the 
companies  with  a  referendum.  It  went  to  a  vote  last  spring  and 
was  carried  by  a  large  majority. 


CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF  IQI 

Last  spring  also  the  citizens  voted  three  million  and  a  half  in 
bonds  to  construct  a  power-plant  on  the  Owens  River  Aqueduct, 
which  will  give  us  immediately  40,000  horse-power,  and  will  lay 
the  foundations  for  the  development  later  of  a  total  of  120,000 
horse-power.  This  power  will  sell  for  enough  to  take  care  of  in- 
terest and  sinking  fund  of  the  aqueduct,  leaving  most  of  the  sale 
of  the  water  for  profit. 

When  it  became  known  to  the  Eastern  syndicate  that  is  pur- 
chasing the  aqueduct  bonds  that  the  city  proposed  to  go  into  the 
electric  business  on  a  large  scale,  difficulties  immediately  de- 
veloped in  the  sale  of  aqueduct  securities,  which  difficulties  could 
easily  have  been  removed  had  the  city  been  willing  to  surrender 
its  power  plans.  Of  course,  this  same  syndicate  of  capitalists  was 
deeply  interested  in  the  securities  of  local  electric  companies 
which  might  be  affected  by  the  municipal  undertaking.  The 
purchase  contract  or  option  held  by  the  syndicate  with  re- 
spect to  the  aqueduct  bonds  was  so  drawn  as  to  admit  of  their 
holding  out  on  the  purchase  for  a  time  with  the  result  that 
the  city  suffered  a  temporary  tie-up  in  the  aqueduct  work  in- 
volving some  loss.  The  banks  of  the  city,  however,  came  to  the 
rescue  and  two  of  the  big  insurance  companies  took  a  million  dol- 
lars of  the  securities,  and  work  was  resumed  after  a  rather  un- 
pleasant struggle  in  which  the  city  got  a  clear  idea  of  what  the 
electric  companies  would  do  if  they  got  a  good  chance.  The 
aqueduct  will  be  finished  in  a  year  or  two,  and  the  city  which  now 
uses  less  than  a  thousand  inches  of  water  will  have  twenty  thou- 
sand, and  will  sell  its  surplus  to  surrounding  cities  and  for  use 
in  intensive  farming.  This  opens  up  the  chance  of  great  under- 
takings. 

One  or  two  changes  of  importance  have  been  undertaken  by  the 
new  administration.  One  of  these  is  the  elimination  of  the  loan- 
shark  evil,  which  formerly  was  very  bad,  but  which  is  now  under 
control,  with  respect  to  city  employees.  The  other  is  in  the  line  of 
liquor  legislation.  The  control  of  the  breweries  over  the  saloons 
has  been  terminated  and  drastic  legislation  has  been  put  through 
for  the  control  of  the  liquor-selling  restaurants.  There  is  a 
limit  of  200  saloons,  which  considering  that  the  city  has  now  over 
300,000  population,  gives  the  smallest  ratio  of  any  city  in  the 
United  States. 


I02  THE  NEW  MUNICIPAL  IDEA 

One  peculiar  issue  was  brought  out  with  reference  to  the  refer- 
endum during  the  year.  When  the  council  passed  the  ordinance 
lowering  electric  lighting  rates,  the  company  proceeded  to  get  sig- 
natures on  a  referendum  petition.  The  charter  provision  was  so 
drawn  that  it  was  possible  for  them  to  hang  up  the  ordinance  until 
an  election  should  come  around,  which  might  mean  six  months  dp 
a  year.  To  fight  .that,  which  meant  a  difference  of  ten  thousand 
dollars  a  month  to  the  citizens,  the  Municipal  League  got  in  with 
another  referendum  petition,  which  would  enable  council  to 
double  up  the  referendum  election  with  another  election  that  was 
coming  along  immediately.  Thus  the  city  was  compelled  to  use 
a  referendum  to  defeat  a  delay  which  the  unfriendly  referendum 
of  the  companies  might  have  caused.  This  illustrates  one  of  the 
difficulties  that  has  to  be  faced  by  the  direct  legislation  plan. 


The   Sliding  Scale   Method  of  Regulating 
Public  Service  Corporations. 

By  EDGAR  N.  WRIGHTINGTON,  BOSTON, 

Vice-president  Boston  Consolidated  Gas  Company. 

The  service  provided  by  our  public  utilities  is  usually  furnished 
under  one  of  four  systems: 

1.  By  means  of  a  single  private  company  without  public  regu- 
lation and  control. 

2.  By  two  private  companies  operating  in  competition  with 
each  other. 

3.  By  the  municipality  through  actual  ownership. 

4.  By  a  private  company  under  public  regulation  and  control. 
Under  the  first  system  it  might  at  first  thought  be  assumed 

that  there  is  no  restriction  whatever  upon  excessive  charges  as 
there  is  neither  actual  competition  nor  public  regulation  to  limit 
the  returns  of  the  company. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  although  some  companies  have 
established  unnecessarily  high  prices  under  these  conditions, 
almost  all  of  them  have  been  satisfied  with  reasonable  profits. 
These  companies  have  realized  that  the  good- will  of  the  public 
is  their  principal  asset,  and  that  low  prices  will  increase  business, 
and,  acting  from  motives  of  intelligent  self-interest,  have  main- 
tained reasonable  charges  to  the  public  for  the  service  which 
they  furnish. 

At  the  same  time  there  has  been  a  growing  sentiment  among 
the  public  that  such  opportunities  as  have  been  offered  these 
companies  for  excessive  profits,  even  if  not  exercised,  are  a 
source  of  some  danger. 

One  of  the  first  remedies  advanced  is  that  of  competition.    To 

the  unthinking  and  inexperienced  the  theory  is  plausible  enough. 

Competition  in  mercantile  lines  of  business  leads 

ay  of  to  reduced  prices,  why  not  with  public  service 

Competition  .       r 

companies  ?    One  reason  is  because  of  the  dupli- 
cate investment  required  for  the  competing  company.    The  fixed 

(103) 


104       REGULATING  PUBLIC  SERVICE  CORPORATIONS 

charges  of  a  public-service  company  are  a  much  greater  propor- 
tion of  the  total  expenses  than  is  the  case  with  most  other  lines 
of  business. 

Although  reductions  in  price  may  at  first  result  from  the  com- 
petition the  investments  are  comparatively  so  large  that  sooner 
or  later  the  two  companies  must  come  to  some  understanding 
and  one  company  purchases  or  consolidates  with  the  other.  In 
the  end  the  public  is  forced  to  pay  the  fixed  charges  on  both 
investments.  This  payment  takes  the  form  either  of  increased 
prices,  or  delay  in  reducing  prices.  We  need  only  point  to  the 
history  of  such  experiments  to  prove  that  such  is  the  almost  in- 
evitable result. 

Municipal  ownership  was  also  at  one  time  a  popular  theory. 
More  recent  experience  has,  however,  demonstrated  its  fallacy, 
and  the  agitation  for  public  ownership  is  dis- 
Mtanicipal  tinctly  on  the  wane.  Even  eliminating  the  fre- 

quent dishonesty  and  inevitable  extravagance  of 
public  ownership,  the  income  derived  from  charges  to  the  public 
for  service  must  be  practically  the  same  as  under  private  owner- 
ship. The  municipal  plant  is  subject  to  the  same  expenses  of 
manufacture  and  of  distribution  as  the  private  plant.  Taxes 
lost  by  the  city  are  equivalent  to  taxes  paid  by  the  private  com- 
pany. Depreciation,  although  often  ignored  by  the  municipal 
authorities,  goes  on  just  the  same  as  with  private  ownership. 

The  rate  of  return  on  the  necessary  investments  by  the  city 
must  always  carry  more  than  the  ordinary  interest  rates  at  which 
the  city  bonds  are  placed,  as  municipalities  are  subject  to  practi-* 
cally  the  same  business  risks  as  are  private  companies. 

But  such  ideal  conditions  of  operation  by  municipalities  are, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  practically  impossible  of  realization.  The 
municipality  cannot  demand  the  services  of  the  best  men  as  mana- 
gers of  the  public  undertakings  on  account  of  the  uncertainties 
of  continuous  employment  through  change  in  political  control. 
The  demands  of  political  patronage  lead  to  the  employment  of 
inexperienced,  and,  oftentimes,  unnecessary  employees. 

Graft  and  dishonesty  are  not  necessary  for  the  failure  of  public 
ownership.  Municipalities  are  notoriously  inefficient  in  con- 
ducting their  ordinary  business  even  when  administered  honestly, 


EDGAR  N.  WRIGHTINGTON  105 

consequently  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  in  those  instances 
in  this  country  where  their  activities  have  been  extended  to  public- 
service  undertakings,  they  have  inevitably  led  to  failure. 

Regulation  and  control  of  a  private  company  by  public  author- 
ity, if  fairly  and  intelligently  exercised,  provide  a  means  of  ad- 
justing any  differences  regarding  rates  and  qual- 
ity of  service.  There  is  some  danger  in  such 
authority  assuming  administrative  functions  and  hampering  the 
proper  conduct  of  the  business  and,  where  rate-making  powers 
are  given,  of  restricting  the  return  on  the  investment  to  such  nar- 
row limits  that  capital  becomes  timid  and  the  development  of  the 
business  is  retarded.  The  net  earnings  should  not  be  reduced 
to  the  point  at  which  confiscation  of  property  might  be  claimed  by 
the  company,  as  a  fair  return  on  the  amount  of  investment  is 
somewhat  more  than  that  which  would  just  escape  confiscation. 
In  the  long  run  the  most  satisfactory  results  will  be  secured  by 
a  policy  which  allows  considerable  freedom  to  the  company  so 
long  as  an  undue  burden  is  not  placed  upon  the  public  by  reason 
of  excessive  charges.  One  disadvantage  of  this  system  of  regu- 
lation is  that  such  extreme  power  is  liable  to  abuse  and  much 
depends  upon  the  personal  element.  Moreover  when  the  returns 
are  fixed  at  a  definite  amount  there  is  no  incentive  on  the  part 
of  the  company  to  introduce  economies  or  improvements  in  the 
service. 

Those  who  do  not  find  in  the  four  systems  of  regulation  men- 
tioned above  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  problems  involved  in 
the  relations  of  public  utilities  with  the  public,  have  been  re- 
cently attracted  to  a  method  long  employed  in  England,  but 
having  only  one  example  in  this  country,  namely  in  Boston. 

This  method  has  been  applied  specifically  to  gas  companies 
and  is  called  the  "  Sliding  Scale  ". 

The  principle  of  the  "  Sliding  Scale  "  is  as  follows : 

A  standard  price  of  gas  is  established  and  a  standard  rate  of 
dividends.  Both  the  price  and  the  rate  of  dividends  are  fixed 
on  such  a  basis  as  to  secure  an  adequate  return 
:  on  the  money  invested  in  the  business.  For 

every  reduction  in  the  price  the  company  is  al- 
lowed to  increase  correspondingly  the  rate  of  dividends  which 
may  be  paid. 


106       REGULATING  PUBLIC  SERVICE  CORPORATIONS 

In  Boston  the  standard  price  for  gas  was  fixed  by  an  act  of 
the  legislature  at  90  cents  per  thousand  cubic  feet.  The  stand- 
ard rate  of  dividends  was  fixed  at  7  per  cent.  For  every  reduc- 
tion of  5  cents  in  the  price  of  gas  the  company  may,  during  the 
following  year,  increase  the  dividend  rate  i  per  cent. 

The  act  provides  a  reserve  fund  for  emergencies  which  may 
be  set  aside  each  year  up  to  i  per  cent  of  the  capital,  until  the 
fund  becomes  equal  to  5  per  cent  of  the  capital  stock.  If  an  ex- 
cess is  earned  above  the  amount  provided  in  the  reserve  fund 
such  excess  is  to  be  paid  to  the  towns  in  which  gas  is  sold  in 
proportion  to  the  miles  of  main  in  each. 

Issues  of  additional  stock  are  to  be  valued  by  the  Board  of 
Gas  and  Electric  Light  Commissioners.  Before  the  new  shares 
are  offered  to  the  stockholders  of  the  company  they  shall  be 
offered  for  sale  by  public  auction,  and  no  bid  is  to  be  accepted  for 
less  than  the  price  fixed.  Any  stock  not  sold  at  auction  is  to  be 
offered  at  the  fixed  price  to  the  stockholders.  Any  stock  so 
offered  and  not  sold  shall  again  be  offered  for  sale  at  public  auc- 
tion. If  the  new  stock  to  be  issued  does  not  exceed  4  per  cent 
of  the  existing  capital  stock  of  the  company  it  may  be  sold  at 
auction  without  being  first  offered  to  the  stockholders,  provided 
it  is  not  sold  at  less  than  par. 

After  ten  years'  time  upon  the  petition  of  the  company,  or 
upon  the  petition  of  the  mayor,  or  selectmen  of  the  cities  and 
towns  in  which  the  company  is  supplying  gas,  the  Board  of  Gas 
and  Electric  Light  Commissioners  shall  have  the  authority  to 
lower  or  raise  the  standard  price  to  such  extent  as  may  justly  be 
required  by  reason  of  greater  or  less  burdens  which  may  be  im- 
posed upon  the  company  by  reason  of  improved  methods  in  the 
art  of  manufacture,  by  reason  of  changes  in  the  prices  of  material 
and  labor,  or  by  reason  of  changes  in  other  conditions  affecting 
the  general  cost  of  manufacture  or  distribution  of  gas. 

Since  the  passage  of  this  act  the  price  of  gas  has  been  twice 
reduced,  on  July  i,  1906  to  85  cents  and  on  July  i,  1907  to  80  cents. 
At  the  same  time  the  rate  of  dividends  has  been  increased  from 
7  per  cent  to  9  per  cent.  For  the  year  ending  June  30,  1907,  the 
first  year  in  which  the  "  Sliding  Scale  "  was  put  into  effect,  the 
sales  were  about  three  and  three-quarter  billion.  The  reduction 


EDGAR  N.  WRIGHTINGTON  107 

of  five  cents  that  year  amounted  to  about  $190,000,  while  the 
extra  I  per  cent  of  dividends  which  were  allowed  amounted  to 
about  $150,000. 

During  the  year  ending  June  30,  1908,  sales  were  about  four 

billion,  and  the  additional  reduction  at  that  time,  together  with 

the  previous  reduction  mentioned  above,  resulted 

Results  of  in  a  saving  to  the  public  of  about  $400,000. 

The  company  received  an  extra  I  per  cent  in 
Experience  ..  •  ,  ,  ,  . 

dividends,  making  the  rate  9  per  cent,  or  an  in- 
crease in  the  total  amount  of  about  $300,000  per  year  for  the 
stockholders. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  mentioned  that  the  various  com- 
panies which  went  to  make  up  what  is  known  as  the  Boston 
Consolidated  Gas  Company,  were  consolidated  on  June  15,  1905, 
and  between  that  time  and  the  date  that  the  "  Sliding  Scale " 
went  into  effect,  the  new  Consolidated  Company  reduced  its  price 
of  gas  10  cents  per  thousand  feet,  so  that  the  public  between 
June  15,  1905,  and  July  i,  1907,  received  a  reduction  in  price 
of  20  cents  per  thousand  cubic  feet,  this  reduction  being  brought 
about  by  the  consolidation  and  the  "  Sliding  Scale  ". 

The  sales  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1910  were  four  billion, 
four  hundred  million  cubic  feet,  and  the  saving  on  this  amount 
to  the  public  at  the  present  price  as  compared  with  the  price  in 
June,  1905,  was  about  $880,00.  It  is  evident  that  the  proportion 
of  the  profits  given  to  the  public  is  increasing  and  will  increase 
more  rapidly  than  the  amount  of  the  profits  given  to  the  com- 
pany. 

It  should  also  be  stated  that  although  the  actual  book  value 
of  the  property  represented  by  the  investments  of  the  company 
amounts  to  nearly  $25,000,000,  the  capitalization  is  only  about 
$15,000,000.  Consequently  a  dividend  of  9  per  cent  on  the  capital 
of  about  $15,000,000  is  equivalent  to  about  5^2  per  cent  on  the 
actual  book  value  of  the  properties. 

The  public  is  interested  primarily  in  low  prices  and  good  ser- 
vice. The  amount  of  dividends  paid  to  the  stockholders  of  the 
company  does  not  interest  the  public  unless  such  payments  pre- 
vent them  from  getting  low  prices. 

When  the  payment  of  extra  dividends  is  not  only  prohibited 


108       REGULATING  PUBLIC  SERVICE  CORPORATIONS 

unless  reductions  in  the  price  are  made,  but  increases  in  the 
rate  of  dividend  are  actually  offered  as  a  reward  for  reduced 
prices,  then  the  public  joins  willingly  in  the  partnership. 

With  the  incentive  of  increased  dividends  before  them  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  display  of  special  energy  and  ability  in  conducting  the 
business,  managers  of  such  undertakings  will  use  every  effort 
to  introduce  economies  and  to  increase  sales  in  order  that  the 
price  may  be  reduced  and  the  dividends  increased.  The  public 
will  receive  the  benefit  of  this  increased  effort  in  lower  prices. 

As  far  as  the  public  is  concerned  nothing  but  praise  is  heard 
of  the  application  of  the  sliding  scale  in  Boston,  as  would  nat- 
urally be  expected  when  their  share  of  the  profits  has  actually 
been  greater  than  that  of  the  company.  Besides  the  reductions 
in  price  which  have  resulted  it  is  believed  that  the  partnership 
with  the  public  which  this  act  creates  develops  that  mutual  good- 
will and  confidence  which  are  essential  in  the  relations  of  all 
public-service  corporations  with  the  public. 


Is  a  Rational  Basis  Possible  for 
Telephone  Rates? 

By  DUGALD  C.  JACKSON,  BOSTON, 

Consulting  Engineer.    Professor  of  Electrical  Engineering  in  the  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology. 

The  rates  charged  for  telephone  service  in  all  the  important 
American  cities  have  grown  up  in  accordance  with  expediency 
and  as  the  result  of  the  judgment  and  experience  of  the  telephone 
officials,  and  it  is,  therefore,  not  astonishing  that  the  telephone 
companies  have  become  accustomed  to  assert  that  rational 
methods  of  analysis  cannot  be  applied  to  test  the  reasonableness 
of  such  rates.  Ready  means  of  intercommunication  are  now  so 
essential  a  part  of  business  and  social  life  that  it 

T       4  is  equally  natural  for  subscribers  to  view  ask- 

Investigations  ,       «,  ,  .         ,  .  , 

ance  the  efforts  at  telephone  rate-making  which 

depend  only  upon  expediency  or  on  the  judgment  of  certain  offi- 
cials. Skepticism  of  the  fairness  of  telephone  rates  fixed  in  that 
manner  has  led  to  investigations  in  a  number  of  the  more  im- 
portant American  cities  and  states,  and  has  produced  reports 
like  those  made  by  the  Merchants'  Association  of  New  York  in 
1905,  the  Special  Telephone  Commission  of  Chicago  in  1907,  the 
Board  of  Trade  of  New  Orleans  in  1908,  the  Travelers  and  Mer- 
chants Association  of  Baltimore  in  1910,  and  the  recent  studies 
of  the  Commissions  of  the  City  of  Los  Angeles  and  of  the  states 
of  Massachusetts  and  Wisconsin. 

The  activity  thus  stirred  up  seems  to  give  promise  of  the  gen- 
eral adoption  of  a  more  rational  basis  of  charges  for  service.  It 
is  undeniable  that  the  judgment  displayed  by  telephone  officials 
has  built  up  their  business  marvelously,  and  has  made  the  tele- 
phone a  necessary  tool  of  commercial  and  social  intercourse ;  but 
the  very  importance  thereby  given  to  the  telephone  service  makes 
indefensible  any  opposition  to  legitimate  efforts  to  get  rates  on 
a  more  rational  basis.  Guiding  principles  in  so  complex  a  subject 
can  be  evolved  only  as  the  result  of  thorough-going  statistical 
study  of  the  problem. 

(109) 


IIO  BASIS  POSSIBLE  FOR  TELEPHONE  RATES 

The  startling  complexity  of  the  telephone  rate  problem  is  illus- 
trated by  the  introductory  statement  of  the  Commission  of  En- 
gineers who  in  1907  made  a  comprehensive  report  of  the  tele- 
phone situation  in  Chicago.  I  will  quote  three  paragraphs  from 
that  report: 

"  A  telephone  company  in  a  large  city  must  face  a  problem  in 
many  respects  more  complex  than  that  of  any  other  public  utility 
corporation.  The  water  department  is  called 
The  Telephone  uPon  to  sel1  a  single  commodity ;  namely,  water, 
Problem  and  at  Prices  which  are  fixed  with  comparative 

readiness.  The  gas  company  also  is  called  upon 
to  sell  a  single  commodity,  metered  for  nearly  every  customer, 
and  its  conditions  in  dealing  with  customers  are  relatively  simple. 
It  may  sell  some  additional  by-products,  as  coke,  tar  and  am- 
monia, but  the  quantities  and  market  values  of  these  are  readily 
arrived  at.  The  traction  company  has  a  more  complex  problem 
than  some  of  the  other  purveyors  of  public  utilities,  but  even 
here  the  price  paid  by  the  several  patrons  is  uniform  and  the  sub- 
stantial difference  between  patrons  lies  only  in  the  lengths} 
of  the  rides  which  they  may  choose  to  take. 

"  The  telephone  problem,  on  the  contrary,  involves  many  com- 
plexities, partially  caused  by  the  relatively  large  number  of 
classes  of  service  which  the  telephone  company  must  offer  to  its 
patrons  for  the  purpose  of  fully  developing  the  telephone  service 
of  the  city,  and  partially  by  the  intangible  character  of  the  elec- 
tric medium  with  which  the  telephone  business  is  carried  on,  the 
delicacy  of  the  apparatus  used,  and  the  wide  differences  in  the 
manner  and  extent  of  the  use  of  the  apparatus  by  the  various  sub- 
cribers. 

"  If  a  telephone  company  properly  extends  the  telephone  ser- 
vice in  the  city,  it  must  be  prepared  to  take  care  of  the  require- 
ments of  a  range  of  patrons  as  wide  as  the  interests  of  the  city 
itself,  including  the  largest  business  organizations,  the  hotels,  the 
newspapers,  the  professional  men,  the  small  business  houses,  and 
residences  of  all  classes.  It  must  provide  apparatus  for  the  ser- 
vice of  each  class  of  patrons  which  will  enable  it  to  furnish  the 
service  to  each  subscriber  at  an  appropriate  price  within  his 
means.  It  is  desirable  for  the  prices  to  be  graded  so  that  the 
largest  user  shall  not  pay  less  than  his  fair  share  of  the  expense 
of  maintaining  the  traffic  and  the  remuneration  to  the  company 
for  its  investment,  and  equally  so  that  the  smallest  user  may  get 
his  telephone  service  at  a  price  which  is  within  his  means  and 
yet  is  reasonably  remunerative  to  the  company  for  its  outlay." 


DUGALD  C.  JACKSON  III 

There  are  four  general  principles  that  cannot  be  safely  de- 
parted from  when  considering  rates  of  a  public-service  company. 
These  may  be  stated  in  the  following  words : 

1.  The  company  is  granted  certain  privileges  by  the  public 
for  the  purpose  of  enabling  it  to  furnish  readily  some  type  of 
service  to  the  people,  and  it  should  be  expected  to  furnish  service 
fitting  the  needs  of  the  people;  good  of  its  kind,  and  at  prices 
which  are  reasonable  when  judged  by  the  conditions. 

2.  The   company   must   not   be  unnecessarily   harrassed,   but 
must  be  afforded  reasonable  opportunity  for  economically  trans- 
acting the  business  related  to  giving  the  service, 

General  f°r  which  the  company  was  organized;  and  it 

Principles  must  be  allowed  to  make  sufficient  returns  on  its 

investment  to  enable  it  to  attract  the  best  and 
fairest  minds  to  the  management,  and  maintain  a  position  of  stable 
credit  with  the  investing  public. 

3.  A  public  service  company  in  a  new  and  developing  country 
must  see  before  it  opportunity  to  earn  returns  on  its  invested 
capital  which  are  large  compared  with  those  adequate  in  stable 
and  thickly-settled  regions,  in  order  that  it  may  secure  the  capital 
needful  for  developing  its  plant  and  extending  its  service  to  meet 
the  apparent  needs  of  an  expanding  but  not  yet  stable  population. 

4.  A  new  company,  even  in  a  stable  country,  ought  to  earn 
more  than  current  rates  of  interest  for  its  investors  whose  en- 
terprise enables  them  to  take  the  risks  of  establishing  the  business, 
but  the  rate  of  return  on  the  investment  may  be  expected  to  ap- 
proach current  rates  of  interest  after  the  business  has  become 
profitable  and  is  firmly  established  on  fixed  franchise  rights  cov- 
ering a  long  period. 

I  will  not  here  give  the  arguments  to  show  the  validity  of 
these  principles,  or  attempt  to  explain  their  significance.  An  ac- 
ceptance of  those  general  principles,  leads  as  a  consequence 
thereof  to  recognizing  that  an  equitable  system  of  telephone  rates 
should  distribute  the  burden  of  expense  which  must  be  borne  by 
the  company  for  operating,  maintenance,  depreciation  and  inter- 
est, between  the  users  with  reasonable  consideration  of  the  pro- 
portion of  the  expense  which  is  caused  by  the  service  in  each  of 
the  several  classes;  and  the  classes  of  service  should  be  subdi- 
vided in  such  a  manner  that  subscribers  with  relatively  similar 
wants  will  naturally  group  themselves  together. 

The  ideal   method  of   charging   for   telephone   service  is   to 


112  BASIS  POSSIBLE  FOR  TELEPHONE  RATES 

charge  each  customer  in  proportion  to  the  service  he  receives 

from  the  company,  measured   in  quantity   re- 

The  Ideal  ceived  and  of  the  quality  corresponding  to  his 

Hffftt.Vind 

needs ;  and  to  make  the  charge  to  all  customers 
as  low  as  is  consistent  with  the  operation  and  maintenance  of  the 
property,  accompanied  by  the  payment  of  a  fair  return  on  the 
money  invested.  When  unlimited  service  rates  are  charged,  two 
kinds  of  customers,  namely,  business  customers  and  residence 
customers,  are  ordinarily  differentiated  from  each  other.  Each 
of  these  kinds  may  be  grouped  in  various  classes  by  arranging 
individual  subcribers  on  special  lines,  associating  two  or  more 
subscribers  on  a  party  line,  providing  private  branch  exchanges, 
etc.,  according  to  the  needs  of  the  customers;  and  the  rates 
charged  for  service  in  the  several  classes  may  be  expected  to 
differ,  on  account  of  differences  in  the  cost  of  equipment  re- 
quired in  different  classes  and  on  account  of  differences  in  the 
average  amounts  of  use  of  the  telephone  by  customers  in  dif- 
ferent classes. 

Message  rates  for  telephone  service  have  decided  advantages 
over  flat  rates  in  many  particulars.  Message  rates  manifestly 
make  it  possible  to  reduce  the  price  of  telephone  service  to  the 
small  users  to  the  smallest  fair  annual  charge  for  what  they 
actually  receive;  and  this  is  particularly  true  if  effective  and  con- 
venient means  for  curbing  extravagant  use  of  the  service  are  in- 
troduced, as  by  the  introduction  of  prepayment  service,  and  con- 
venient means  for  collecting  accounts  are  provided. 

The  smallest  fair  annual  charge  referred  to  should  probably 
be  sufficient  to  cover  a  reasonable  interest,  taxes,  depreciation 
and  maintenance  for  the  portion  of  the  plant  that  must  be  pro- 
vided for  the  use  of  the  average  of  the  individual  users  in  the 
subscriber's  particular  class,  added  to  an  amount  which  is  pro- 
portional to  the  average  number  of  messages  transmitted  from 
his  telephone  in  a  year. 

All  legitimate  expenses  of  the  operating  company  must  ob- 
viously be  provided  out  of  the  revenue  obtained  from  the  rates, 

and  the  rates  should  raise  only  enough  revenue 
Expenses 

to  meet  these  expenses,  provided  the  word  "  ex- 
penses "  is  used  comprehensively  so  as  to  include  return  on  the 


DUGALD  C  JACKSON  113 

investment.  The  expenses  may  be  grouped  as  executive  (gen- 
eral), operating,  maintenance  (repairs),  taxes,  renewals  (depre- 
ciation, etc.),  and  the  return  on  the  investment.  The  last  item  is 
sometimes  referred  to  as  "  interest "  and  sometimes  as  "  inter- 
est and  profit ".  In  the  latter  phrasing,  I  presume  that  the  in- 
terest referred  to  must  be  taken  at  current  rates  for  secured 
investments,  and  that  any  additional  return  required  to  support 
the  solvency  of  projects  referred  to  in  the  third  and  fourth  of  the 
above-mentioned  general  principles,  may  be  called  the  "  profit ". 
A  reasonable  standing  surplus  is  needed  as  a  reservoir  to  main- 
tain a  parity  of  conditions  from  year  to  year,  and  if  this  has 
been  drawn  upon  it  must  be  replenished  as  earnings  warrant. 

If  the  rates  by  which  the  revenue  is  raised  are  to  be  put  on  a 
rational  basis,  there  must  be  some  better  reason  for  the  differ- 
ences between  the  charges  for  different  classes  of  service  than 
only  the  judgment  of  company  officials,  however  able  and  experi- 
enced those  officials  may  be.  These  differences  now  rest  almost 
altogether  on  expediency,  what  the  traffic  will  bear  as  shown  by 
the  growth  of  the  service,  and  a  certain  bulk  judgment  of  the 
possibilities.  To  improve  on  this,  it  is  necessary  to  obtain  an 
intimate  statistical  knowledge  of  the  traffic  of  each  class  of  sub- 
scribers, the  plant  investment  required  to  provide  that  traffic, 
the  effect  of  the  traffic  on  the  wear  of  plant,  the 
Statistics  Needed  expenses  of  operation  associated  with  the  traffic, 
and  other  like  information  that  telephone  companies  have  not 
been  in  the  habit  of  gathering  or  recording.  The  plant,  the 
money,  and  the  traffic  statistics  must  be  brought  into  association. 
The  telephone  companies  have  heretofore  been  satisfied  to  hold 
their  accounting  as  a  species  of  auditing  capable  of  showing 
what  dividends  the  company  can  pay,  after  leaving  some  sur- 
plus as  the  result  of  any  year  of  operation,  and  they  have  failed 
to  erect  it  into  a  statistical  structure  which  will  afford  indications 
of  the  relative  reasonableness  of  their  different  rates.  The  hesi- 
tancy of  company  management  to  enter  upon  full  statistical 
records  and  study  of  its  business  when  not  compelled  to  do  so 
by  the  influence  of  keen  competition  such  as  exists  in  some 
branches  of  manufacturing,  is  perhaps  not  unnatural  but  it  is  a 
hesitancy  that  needs  to  be  overcome  for  the  joint  good  of  the 
public  and  the  serving  companies. 


U4  BASIS  POSSIBLE  FOR  TELEPHONE  RATES 

As  a  basis  of  determining  the  reasonableness  of  rates,  the  fol- 
lowing factors  must  be  taken  into  account : 

(i)  The  annual  cost  entailed  by  the  investment  which  is 
needed  to  care  for  the  subscribers'  wants,  which  investment  de- 
pends not  only  on  the  cost  of  the  plant  required  to  connect  the 
subscribers  to  the  exchanges,  but  also  on  the  amount  of  traffic 
which  is  handled  over  the  subscribers'  lines;  and  (2),  the  cost 
per  message  entailed  in  caring  for  the  subscribers'  traffic. 

The  property  required  for  each  class  of  service  must  be  main- 
tained day  by  day,  and  also  must  be  replaced  as  it  depreciates 
from  any  cause  below  an  efficient  condition ;  interest  must  also  be 
earned  upon  the  investment.  These  should  not  be  apportioned 
among  the  classes  of  service  directly  in  proportion  to  the  num- 
bers of  subscribers  in  the  classes,  but  should  be  apportioned  in 
proportions  depending  jointly  on  the  numbers  of  subscribers,  the 
character  of  the  plant  required,  and  the  amounts  of  traffic  in  the 
several  classes.  The  annual  cost  entailed  by  the  investment  which 
is  needed  to  pay  for  the  subscribers'  wants,  therefore,  depends 
upon  two  things.  One  is  the  mere  fact  of  his  taking  telephone 
service,  and  therefore  requiring  the  company  to  furnish  equip- 
ment whereby  it  may  be  ready  to  serve  him — the  cost  of  which 
equipment  is  affected  by  the  kind  of  line  he  subscribes  for,  as 
special  line,  two-party,  private  branch  exchange,  etc.  The  other 
is  the  extent  of  his  traffic,  since  a  large  amount  of  service  origi- 
nated by  a  subscriber  calls  for  a  larger  investment  in  certain 
portions  of  the  plant  than  would  be  requisite  to  care  for  the 
wants  of  a  subscriber  with  a  similar  line  but  smaller  traffic  there- 
over. 

The  costs  over  and  above  the  return  on  the  investment  are 
made  up  of  (a)  an  operating  cost;  (b)  the  costs  of  general  ex- 
_  penses  (including  taxes),  superintendence,  ad- 

vertising, current  repairs,  instrument  rentals, 
messenger  expense,  conduit,  pole  and  roof  rentals,  sublicensee  ex- 
penses, and  the  like;  and  (c)  the  depreciation  charge,  including 
insurance  against  the  effects  of  extraordinary  action  of  the  ele- 
ments, and  the  cost  of  reconstruction  required  by  legal  enact- 
ments. 

The  investment  required  per  subscriber  in  the  various  classes 


DUGALD  C.  JACKSON  115 

of  service  is  a  complex  quantity.  For  instance,  each  subscriber 
requires  one  substation  and  one  drop  wire,  regardless  of  the 
character  of  service ;  special  line  subscribers  each  require  one  sub- 
scriber's telephone  circuit  with  switch-board  connection;  party- 
line  subscribers  are  each  chargeable  with  a  part  of  the  cost  of 
one  subscriber's  line  and  switch-board  connection,  etc. 

Interest  and  depreciation  (renewals)  carry  a  larger  influence 
in  the  affairs  of  a  public  service  company  than  in  average  busi- 
ness affairs,  particularly  because  the  total  income  of  a  public  ser- 
vice company  is  a  fraction  of  the  actual  money  invested  instead 
of  being  a  multiple  thereof.  It  is,  therefore,  manifest  that  a  de- 
tailed knowledge  of  the  cost  of  producing  the  property  required 
for  sustaining  the  public  service  is  one  of  the  features  of  prime 
importance  in  the  problem  of  arriving  at  rational  rates.  This 
points  to  appraisals  of  the  property  of  the  telephone  companies, 
as  done  in  Massachusetts  and  Wisconsin,  since  the  companies 
themselves  seldom  have  adequate  records  of  either  property  units 
or  property  costs.  The  apportionment  of  investment  and  annual 
expenses  between  classes  of  service  for  the  purpose  of  testing  the 
reasonableness  of  existing  rates  or  fixing  new  ones,  requires  the 
assumption  of  factors  and  the  utilization  of  averages  which  the 
old-type  telephone  man  may  criticise,  but  such  criticism  may  be 
captious  rather  than  just.  The  whole  fabric,  for  instance,  of1 
charges  by  life  insurance  companies  depends  upon  careful  actu- 
arial computations  founded  on  the  use  of  averages  and  it  works 
out  advantageously  for  both  the  insurer  and  the  insured.  A  care- 
ful insurer  would  have  a  profound  distrust  of  an  insurance  com- 
pany which  failed  to  gather,  record,  and  use  all  pertinent  sta- 
tistics in  connection  with  its  rate-making. 

One  of  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  is  to  devise  a  test  of  the 

equitableness  of  rates  which,  as  a  test,  will  be  satisfactorily  appli- 

.  cable  to  .all  cases.     It  is  being  urged  in  some 

quarters  that  cost  of  specific  performed  service 

shall  be  determining.     In  other  quarters,  it  is  urged  that  the 

"  value  of  the  service  "  to  the  subscribers  shall  be  determining. 

The  latter  seems  but  another  way  of  proposing  to  make  charges 

according  to  "what  the  traffic  will  bear",  when  that  phrase  is 

used  in  its  objectionable  sense  of  taking  as  much  as  the  sub- 


Il6  BASIS  POSSIBLE  FOR  TELEPHONE  RATES 

scribers  will  give  up.  This  phrase,  "  what  the  traffic  will  bear  ", 
however,  has  a  meritorious  significance  which  differs  from  ita 
popularly-accepted  meaning  of  taking  all  that  the  customers  will 
pay.  According  to  its  meritorious  and  correct  meaning,  it  signifies 
that  the  charges  made  for  service  are  adjusted  as  between  the  com- 
pany and  each  group  of  its  customers,  so  that  the  company  finds 
the  dealings  profitable  with  each,  when  the  full  situation  is  con- 
sidered, and  each  customer  receives  service  which,  as  nearly 
as  practicable,  meets  his  requirements  and  costs  a  price  which 
makes  the  service  advantageous  to  him,  while  no  unjust  discrimi- 
nations between  customers  are  allowed. 

In  passing,  I  will  make  a  note  that  the  last  phrase  does  not 
involve  equal  prices  to  all  customers,  but  does  involve  the  treat- 
ment of  all  customers  so  that  they  obtain  from  the  company  rela- 
tively a  fair  return  for  their  money. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  test  of  the  reasonableness  or  equitable- 
ness  of  the  rates  maintained  by  a  public  service  corporation  is 
found  in:  (i)  The  effectiveness  and  simplicity  with  which  the 
schedule  classifies  the  customers,  so  that  the  total  required  income 
is  collected  in  a  manner  which  secures  the  same  rate  for  all  cus- 
tomers of  a  class  obtaining  approximately  like  service,  though 
customers  belonging  in  different  classes  may  be  subject  to  quite 
different  rates  because  they  obtain  service  with  differences  of 
character  which  essentially  affect  the  cost  per  unit;  and  (2)  the 
certainty  with  which  the  rates  secure  from  each  class  of  cus- 
tomers the  full  annual  operating  cost  of  the  service  in  that  class 
and  such  a  proportion  of  the  reasonable  return  on  the  investment 
as  the  customers'  traffic  can  afford.  It  then  becomes  a  matter  of 
public  policy  to  determine  whether  a  company  receiving  a  public 
grant  shall  be  privileged  to  take  a  larger  proportion  of  profit  from 
one  class  of  customers  than  from  another,  the  word  "profit" 
being  used  to  signify  the  aggregate  return  on  the  investment. 
This  is  a  relatively  new  question  in  public  policy,  and  the  ultimate 
limitations  of  the  policy  must  rest  with  experience  and  the 
future  expressed  judgment  of  our  most  judicial  minds.  It  would 
be  a  manifest  injury  to  the  nation  if  the  policy  became  so  cir- 
cumscribed that  the  railroads  would  feel  that  equal  proportions 
of  profit  must  be  earned  on  all  parts  of  their  systems  and  from 


DUGALD  C.  JACKSON 

all  kinds  of  traffic.  What  the  effect  of  so  circumscribed  a  policy 
would  be  in  the  case  of  corporations  giving  service  within  the 
limits  of  a  single  city  or  a  single  state  like  most  of  the  telephone 
companies  is  not  so  clear,  but  it  would  probably  be  undesirable. 

The  cost  of  performing  the  service  seems  to  me  the  most  im- 
portant factor  in  determining  rates  in  stable  and  well  devel- 
oped territory,  but  its  application  to  telephone 

Celerity  and  service  must  be  made  with  a  cautious  consid- 

Accur&cv 

eration  of  all  the  facts.     Reasons  for  this  are 

obvious  when  the  problem  of  telephone  service  is  carefully 
scrutinized.  In  city  service,  the  large  business  users  demand  a 
celerity  and  accuracy  (quality)  for  the  service  which  adds  much 
to  its  cost.  Physical  conditions  prevent  providing  this  fast  ser- 
vice for  one  class  of  subscribers  and  not  for  others  in  intimate 
intercommunication  therewith.  But  some  of  the  latter  classes, 
as  for  instance,  the  residence  users  of  moderate  means,  may  have 
no  interest  in  or  care  for  the  remarkable  speed  and  accuracy 
which  characterizes  the  telephone  service  of  many  American 
cities.  Service  of  a  lower  grade  of  speed  and  accuracy,  which 
is  less  costly  to  produce,  would  equally  well  satisfy  the  desires  and 
needs  of  such  subscribers.  A  distinction  should,  therefore,  prob- 
ably be  made  in  class  rates,  so  that  the  cost  of  the  extraordinary 
speed  and  accuracy  may  be  placed  on  the  classes  of  subscribers 
who  demand  it. 

A  similar  condition  exists  in  the  relations  of  city  and  rural 
telephone  service.  The  business  subscribers  of  the  city  demand  the 
speediest  and  most  accurate  service  obtainable  at  any  cost,  but 
rural  subscribers  are  usually  well  satisfied  by  a  more  leisurely 
grade  of  service.  However,  the  city  conditions  are  forced,  by 
the  demands  of  the  city,  to  be  spread  over  both  the  city  and  the 
closely  related  rural  communities ;  and,  here  again,  the  extra  cost 
of  the  speedy  service  presumably  ought  to  be  borne  by  the  classes 
of  subscribers  imposing  it.  As  the  provision  of  the  speedier  ser- 
vice requires  greater  investment  in  rural  plant  than  might  other- 
wise be  necessary,  it  is  obvious  that  the  cost  of  performing  spe- 
cific service  in  the  suburban  communities  may  not  be  a  fair  basis 
of  rates  in  case  the  cost  is  to  be  put  where  it  belongs. 

The  foregoing  indicates  that  city  business  rates  may  be  reason- 


Hg  BASIS  POSSIBLE  FOR  TELEPHONE  RATES 

ably  expected  to  be  higher  than  residence  or  rural  rates.  A  dif- 
ferentiation between  business  and  residence  users  under  flat  rates 
has  heretofore  been  common,  and  this  is  additionally  justified  by 
the  lower  average  calling  rate  which  is  usually  characteristic  of 
residence  subscribers  where  flat  rates  are  in  vogue.  The  rela- 
tions pointed  out  above  apparently  justify  an  adjustment  in  favor 
of  residence  users  of  moderate  requirements  even  when  meas- 
ured rates  are  adopted.  The  policy  of  some  telephone  companies 
apparently  is  in  this  direction. 

Progress  is  plainly  being  made  in  the  direction  of  rationalizing 
telephone  rates.  One  of  its  indications  is  found  in  the  syllabus  of 
an  opinion  delivered  in  a  telephone  rate  case  by  the  Wisconsin 
Railroad  Commission,  which  says: 

"  No  reasonable  objection  can  be  taken  to  a  schedule  of  rates 
based  upon  the  actual  quantity  of  the  service  rendered." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  quarrel  with  this,  provided  "  quantity  '* 
is  construed  to  comprehend  the  number  of  messages  or  reason- 
able time-length  and  the  distance  of  the  message  transmission;  it 
being  understood,  however,  that  any  comparison  must  rest  be- 
tween users  needing  service  of  equal  quality.  If  the  latter  con- 
dition is  not  tacitly  understood,  the  statement  ought  to  be 
amended  so  as  to  read  that  "  no  reasonable  objection  can  be  taken 
to  a  schedule  of  rates  based  upon  the  actual  quality  of  the  ser- 
vice required  and  quantity  rendered." 

As  also  showing  the  tendency  toward  rationalizing  rates,  I  will 
quote  from  a  recent  finding  of  the  Massachusetts  Highway  Com- 
mission in  respect  to  telephone  rates  in  the  large  city  of  Boston 
and  its  surrounding  important  suburban  districts: 

Knowing  that  a  certain  revenue  must  be  raised,  the  Massachu- 
setts Commission  has  pointed  out : 

That  the  district  to  be  covered  by  a  given  telephone  rate 
should  be  the  territory  generally  used  by  the  great  majority  of 
the  subscribers  therein,  rather  than  a  much  larger  territory,  the 
greater  portion  of  which  is  seldom  used  by  the  majority  of  sub- 
scribers. 

"That  the  company  should  collect  its  revenues  for  calls  be- 
tween more  distant  portions  of  the  territory  from  those  who  makes 
use  of  such  service,  rather  than  from  those  who  use  only  local 


DUGALD  C  JACKSON  119 

service  involving  the  use  of  a  much  smaller  portion  of  the  plant. 
"  That  the  suburban  exchanges  have  of  neces- 
Massachusetts  sity  so  much  occasion  for  calling  into  Boston 
Recommend-  and  vice  versa  that  the  five-cent  toll  rate  be- 
ations  tween  Boston  and  suburban  exchanges  should 

be  extended  to  cover  the  longest  distance  con- 
sistent with  a  well-balanced  schedule  and  with  fairness  to  the 
company. 

"  That  business  service,  at  least,  except  for  essentially  local  ser- 
vice, should  be  placed  on  a  measured  basis ;  and 

"  That  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  do  so,  the  rate  schedule  should 
be  so  made  as  to  furnish  telephone  service  to  the  small  user  at  the 
lowest  yearly  charge  that  is  fair  and  equitable,  and,  on  that  as  a 
basis,  adjusted  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  medium  user." 

Telephone  companies  still  assert  that  no  rational  basis  for  tele- 
phone rates  can  be  found.  A  few  of  the  companies  have  adopted 
their  rate  schedules  as  the  result  of  certain  actuarial  operations, 
but  most  of  them  have  arrived  at  their  schedules  by  the  path  of 
expediency  and  gradual  modification.  Few  can  support  the  rea- 
sonableness of  their  schedules  on  a  foundation  of  facts  produced 
from  their  accounting  records,  but  I  believe  that  this  condition 
not  only  ought  to  be  overcome,  but  is  likely  to  be  overcome.  The 
willingness  of  the  telephone  companies  to  co-operate  with  super- 
visory commissions,  in  gathering,  and,  to  some  degree,  in  study- 
ing, cost  and  traffic  statistics,  is  an  encouraging  indication.  With 
accumulating  statistics  which  give  a  clearer  understanding  of 
costs  of  giving  service  and  the  relation  of  speed  and  accuracy 
of  service  to  its  costs,  each  modification  of  rate  schedules  under 
the  supervision  of  wisely-constituted  commissions  ought  to  ap- 
proach closer  to  a  rational  basis.  A  more  effective  organization 
of  cost  keeping  than  has  yet  come  into  vogue  should  be  insisted 
on.  It  must  also  be  constantly  remembered  that  traffic  is  a  factor 
of  the  utmost  importance,  and  traffic  statistics  must  be  made  of 
record  and  carefully  studied. 

The  telephone  rate  problem  seems  as  complex  as  any  facing  the 
public  service  commissions,  not  excepting  the  problem  of  rail- 
road freight  rates;  but  telephone  rates  are  usually  made  for  the 
territory  of  an  individual  city,  or,  at  most,  an  individual  state, 
which  gives  ground  for  expecting  more  rapid  progress  in  improv- 
ing the  basis  of  fixing  telephone  rates  than  can  probably  be  rea- 
sonably expected  for  freight  rates. 


The  Street   Railway  Situation  In  Detroit. 

By  PAUL  LEAKE, 

Secretary  Wholesalers'  and  Manufacturers'  Association,  Detroit. 

In  accepting  the  commission  to  prepare  a  paper  on  the  street 
railway  situation  in  Detroit,  and  its  possible  or  probable  solution, 
I  realize  that  there  are  about  as  many  opinions  as  there  are  stu- 
dents of  the  urban  transportation  problem.  I  cannot  please  every 
one,  but  will  endeavor  to  give  a  clear,  unbiased  statement  of  one 
of  the  most  complex  questions  in  our  municipal  life. 

To  put  the  cart  before  the  horse,  I  will  state  that  it  looks  as  if 
the  people,  as  represented  by  voters  at  the  polls,  do  not  want  a 
settlement  of  the  street  car  question,  as  at  the  time  this  is  written 
both  the  Republican  and  Democratic  nominees  for  mayor  have 
injected  into  their  campaigns  the  street  car  question,  and  strange 
to  say,  both  are  leaning  to  the  ultra-radical,  and  bidding  for  votes 
on  the  municipal  ownership  basis. 

In  the  presentation  of  this  paper  it  must  be  understood  I  take 
neither  side  of  the  question,  but  endeavor  to  place  the  situation 
before  you  as  a  citizen  and  a  taxpayer. 

To  handle  the  question  intelligently  it  is  necessary  to  give  a 

brief  historical  review  of  the  transportation  question  in  Detroit. 

.  In  the  course  of  evolution,  the  horse  car  gave 

Review  way  to  tjie  e^ectric  ^nes»  capitalists  from  Cleve- 

land, including  Tom  L.  Johnson,  invaded  De- 
troit and  sought  a  franchise.  Hazen  S.  Pingree,  then  mayor, 
and  afterward  governor,  countenanced  the  granting  of  a  franchise 
to  what  was  then  considered  an  independent  line  under  the  name 
of  the  Detroit  Railway  Company,  and  a  grant  of  rights  through 
the  streets  was  given  until  1924.  It  was  specified  that  in  con- 
sideration of  the  privileges  granted  by  the  city  that  the  new  rail- 
road line  was  to  give  so-called  three-cent  fares,  in  other  words, 
a  straight  five-cent  fare  when  the  cash  was  paid,  but  eight  tickets 
for  a  quarter  good  from  a  little  after  daylight  until  eight  in  the 
evening,  when  six  for  a  quarter  rules. 

It  was  understood,  however,  that  transfers  could  only  be  given 

(120) 


PAUL  LEAKE  121 

to  other  three-cent  lines  on  a  ticket  fare,  and  if  a  transfer  were 
demanded  on  the  old-line  companies,  working  under  a  five-cent 
franchise,  a  five-cent  fare  was  demanded.  In  consideration  of 
the  low  rate  of  fare,  the  city  in  the  grant  given  to  the  three-cent 
lines,  specified  that  the  city  would  do  all  the  paving  between  the 
tracks.  This  has  cost  the  municipality  more  than  $57,000  from 
1902  to  date. 

Single-truck  cars  were  introduced,  and  with  a  rocking-horse 
motion,  a  hair-raising  turning  of  curves,  and  a  depleted  founda- 
tion for  the  tracks,  which  the  city  was  supposed  to  keep  up,  the 
patrons  of  the  line  of  cheap  transportation  suffered  alternately 
from  nausea  and  bad  temper,  principally  from  the  latter.  In 
this  way  the  trolley  system  was  introduced  into  Detroit  when  the 
then  poorly-developed  storage-battery  scheme  proved  a  failure. 

Inventive  genius  and  financiers  improved  the  situation,  and 
in  December,  in  fact  on  the  last  day  of  1900,  the  Detroit  United 
Railway  was  organized,  with  a  capital  of  $12,500,000.  It  then 
acquired  title  to  187  miles  of  street  railways  within  the  city 
limits,  including  the  three-cent  fare  lines.  The  properties  ac- 
quired by  the  present  owners  of  the  street  railways  of  Detroit 
came  from  three  sources.  There  were  the  Detroit  Citizens' 
Street  Railway,  the  Fort  Wayne  &  Belle  Isle  Railway,  and  the 
Detroit  Electric  Railway.  , 

It  might  be  said  in  passing,  that  the  primary  development  of 
a  street  railway  system  in  Detroit  was  accomplished,  as  noted 
above,  by  the  corporations  which  built  the  lines  of  the  Detroit 
Citizens'  Street  Railway,  and  the  Fort  Wayne  &  Belle  Isle  sys- 
tems, which  have  since  become  an  integral,  and  one  might  say,  the 
fundamental  part  of  the  Detroit  United  Railway. 

In  laying  out  the  plan  of  the  city,  much  was  due  to  the 
splendid  judgment  of  Judge  Woodward,  after  whom  our  main 
business  thoroughfare,  leaving  aside  the  Wall  Street  of  De- 
troit, Griswold  Street,  was  named. 

The  Judge,  in  laying  out  the  plan,  gave  rise  to  the  "  Hub  " 
idea,  which  has  since  been  utilized  by  the  Wholesalers  &  Manu- 
facturers' Association  of  Detroit  as  a  slogan 

The  Hub  Idea          <•  1  -A  1-1 

of  progress  and  prosperity;  a  cut  having  been 

gotten  out  and  copyrighted,  demonstrating  that  Detroit  is  "  The 
Commercial  Hub  of  the  Middle  West". 


122       THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 

Taking  the  city  hall  as  a  pivotal  spot,  Judge  Woodward  laid 
out  the  city  in  an  elliptical  form,  the  center  being  the  city  hall. 
The  streets  reaching  into  what  was  then  the  country,  but  which 
is  now  well  within  the  city  limits,  radiated  from  the  common 
center  of  the  city  hall  and  the  Campus  Martius.  This  design 
simplified  matters  for  the  street  railway  builders  and  promoters. 
The  main  arteries  of  travel  from  this  common  center  were  Jef- 
ferson, Grand  River,  Woodward,  Gratiot,  Michigan  and  Fort. 
In  the  development  of  the  street  car  service,  naturally  these 
main  thoroughfares  were  utilized.  This  was  done  because  they 
were  the  shortest  distances  between  their  terminal  points  and  the 
center  of  the  city. 

The  development  of  these  main  arteries  of  travel  by  the  De- 
troit United  Railway  which  acquired  rights  in  the  Detroit  Citi- 
zens' and  Detroit  Electric  Railways,  necessitated  the  building  of 
branch  lines,  among  which  were  Myrtle  Street,  a  branch  of  the 
Grand  River  Line,  the  Crawford  Street,  now  the  Greenwood 
loop  of  the  Third  Avenue  Line.  The  present  Trumbull  Avenue 
line  was  a  branch  of  the  Michigan  Avenue  line.  With  the 
growth  of  the  city,  these  lines  were  made  main  lines,  as  were  the 
Brush  and  Chene  Street  lines. 

In  considering  the  present  street  car  situation  in  Detroit,  the 
fact  must  be  taken  into  consideration  that  none  of  the  so-called 
three-cent  lines  under  the  Pingree  franchise  hit  any  of  these  main 
radial  streets,  save  in  their  entrance  to  the  center  of  the  city, 
where  they  were  given  running  rights  over  the  properties  acquired 
by  the  Detroit  United  Railway. 

According  to  the  terms  of  the  agreement  of  the  three-cent 
lines,  the  Detroit  United  Railway  has  a  right  over  the  Detroit 
Citizens'  lines  until  the  expiration  of  the  franchise  of  the  latter 
in  1924.  This  being  the  case,  the  present  corporation  is  in  a 
position  of  independence,  even  though  the  franchises  on  the  main 
five-cent  lines  have  expired.  In  other  words,  the  Detroit  United 
Railway  has  so  legality  fortified  itself,  that  even  if  all  of  its  fran- 
chises were  declared  null  and  void,  due  to  the  limit  of  life  placed 
upon  them  in  the  original  grant,  it  would  still  have  a  right  to 
enter  the  city  over  the  three-cent  lines  unmolested  until  1924. 

The  only  reason  I  have  thus  gone  into  detail,  is  to  show  the 


PAUL  LEAKE  123 

complications  of  the  situation  in  Detroit;  and  to  show  how  for 
years,  the  street  car  question  has  formed  the  principal  topic  of 
political  conversation,  and  the  main  issue  of  the  campaign,  up 
to  and  including  the  present  date. 

Several  honest  attempts  have  been  made  to  take  the  street 
railway  question  out  of  politics.  One  of  these  attempts  was  made 
in  the  city  campaign  of  1906. 

Here  I  will  inject  sufficient  of  a  personal  note  to  state  that  at 
that  time  I  was  financial  editor  of  the  Detroit  "  Free  Press,"  and 
personally  handled  most  of  the  facts  printed  during  the  cam- 
paign. The  records  of  all  that  was  written  is  in  my  possession. 
I  will  now  tell  tales  out  of  school,  for  the  reason  that  William 
E.  Quinby,  who  was  then  editor-in-chief  of  the  Detroit  Free 
Press,  has  passed  into  the  valley  of  the  dark  shadow,  but  before 
his  departure  he  gave  me  permission  to  print  the  real  facts  re- 
garding the  "  Codd-Hutchins  Ordinance  "  campaign. 

Mayor  George  P.  Codd,  desirous,  as  was  our  present,  or  rather 

late  mayor,  Philip  Breitmeyer,  of  bringing  about  a  settlement 

of  the  street  car  question,  and  removing  the 

too  d-Hutcmns  same  frOm  politics,  called  upon  the  editors  of 
Ordinance 

the   daily  newspapers.     He   told   Mr.   Quinby 

that  after  nearly  two  years'  work  he  had  finally  gotten  Presi- 
dent J.  C.  Hutchins,  of  the  Detroit  United  Railway,  to  consent 
to  submit  to  a  settlement  of  the  street  car  question  to  the  people 
on  a  business  basis.  The  fundamental  principles  of  which  were 
ten  workingmen's  tickets  for  a  quarter,  during  five  hours  of  the 
day,  three  in  the  morning  and  two  in  the  evening,  and  a  uniform 
fare  of  six  for  a  quarter  during  the  remainder  of  the  24  hours. 
Going  over  the  situation  thoroughly,  and  delving  into  the  cost  of 
carrying  passengers,  Mr.  Quinby  pledged  the  support  of  the  Free 
Press  to  Mr.  Codd,  solely  on  the  grounds  that  the  mayor  was  at 
last  attempting  to  take  the  street  railway  problem  out  of  politics 
and  settle  it  on  a  business  basis.  William  B.  Thompson,  a  Demo- 
crat who  had  for  years  served  the  municipality  in  various  capa- 
cities, including  alderman  from  the  eighth  ward,  city  treasurer, 
etc.,  opposed  Mayor  Codd  on  the  ground  that  he,  Thompson, 
could  secure  three-cent  fares  if  selected.  Mr.  Thompson  was 
victorious,  but  during  his  two  years  of  office  did  nothing  to  bring 


124       THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 

the  street  railway  question  to  a  settlement.  In  the  meantime, 
having  supreme  faith  in  the  ultimate  fairness  of  the  people,  the 
Detroit  United  Railway,  under  the  policy  mapped  out  by  J.  C. 
Hutchins,  president  of  the  corporation,  passed  dividends  and 
turned  the  earnings  into  the  betterment  of  the  properties,  in- 
cluding the  laying  of  "  T  "  rails,  and  heavier  foundations  in  the 
streets,  besides  adding  to  the  equipment  of  the  road  and  re-estab- 
lishing the  "  Monroe  "  shops  where  nearly  a  thousand  men  are 
employed,  and  old  cars  modernized. 

Closely  following  the  Codd  campaign,  in  which  Mr.  Thomp- 
son won  out  on  a  promise  of  securing  three-cent  fares,  came  the 
financial  crisis  of  1907.  Then  it  was  Mr.  Hutchins  privately  ac- 
knowledged that  he  was  pleased  at  the  outcome  of  the  election, 
as,  if  Codd  had  won  out,  the  cutting  into  the  revenue  which  would 
have  followed  the  financial  crisis  of  1907,  would  have  so  crippled 
the  system  as  to  have  made  it  hard  work  for  the  road  to  make 
both  ends  meet. 

This  brings  the  street  railway  situation  up-to-date  as  it  were. 
Mr.  Thompson  was  defeated  in  the  race  for  mayor  two  years 
ago  by  Mayor  Philip  Breitmeyer,  who  was  retired  November 
8th.  Mr.  Breitmeyer's  pledge  was  to  settle  the  street  railway 
question  on  a  business  basis.  Following  out  the  line  of  policy, 
Mr.  Breitmeyer  appointed  a  committee  of  fifty,  taking  in  the 
cream  of  the  business  interests  of  Detroit. 

of  FlitT"11*1688  Frank  W'  Eddy>  °f  H>  D'  Edwards  &  Ca'  a 
director  of  Morgan  &  Wright,  and  an  ex-presi- 
dent of  the  Detroit  Club,  was  chosen  as  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee of  fifty;  the  vice-chairman  was  Frank  H.  Conant,  one  of 
Delamater  Hardware  Company's  leading  lights,  and  a  recog- 
nized authority  on  business  problems.  Besides  these  two  note- 
worthy men,  W.  C.  Noack,  of  Noack  &  Gorenflo,  and  president 
of  the  Wholesalers  and  Manufacturers'  Association  of  Detroit, 
was  added  to  the  committee.  All  of  these  gentlemen  did  yeomen 
work  in  endeavoring  to  solve  the  problem  with  a  view  of  secur- 
ing definite  information  as  to  the  cost  of  running  systems  in 
other  states,  and  in  fact,  regarding  urban  service  the  world  over 
in  all  their  details,  the  gentlemen  of  the  committee  of  fifty  gave 
freely  of  their  time  and  patience.  Men  of  all  callings  werfr 


PAUL  LEAKE  125 

represented  on  the  committee  of  fifty,  including  the  clergy.  Its 
personnel  should  have  been  a  guarantee  of  the  mayor's  earnest- 
ness of  purpose,  because  the  men  comprising  the  committee  were 
the  leading  men  of  the  community,  successful  in  their  various 
lines  of  activity,  and  of  such  strict  integrity  as  to  be  above  re- 
proach. 

Notwithstanding  this  fact,  politics  was  again  injected  through 
the  instigation  of  the  other  political  party,  and  an  independent 
committee  of  fifty,  representative  of  the  socialistic  and  labor 
elements,  was  formed  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  securing  muni- 
cipal ownership  if  possible.  The  appropriation  of  money  for  the 
purpose  of  paying  the  necessary  expenses  of  the  regular  com- 
mittee of  fifty  was  bitterly  opposed,  and  from  that  time  on,  for 
months  a  continuous  stream  of  political  twaddle  appeared  in  the 
papers,  one  of  which  always  played  to  the  gallery.  The  De- 
troit News  came  out  openly  for  municipal  ownership  and  column 
after  column  appeared  devoted  entirely  to  that  issue. 

The  Committee  of  Fifty  finally  succeeded  in  securing  funds 
enough  with  which  to  pursue  its  investigations  and  sub-committees 
were  appointed  as  follows:  ways  and  means,  statistics  and  regu- 
lations, appraisals,  cost  of  service,  legal,  franchise,  schedule, 
conference,  extensions  and  rearrangements,  municipal  ownership, 
taxation  and  paving. 

Thus  the  wide  field  opened  up  was  covered.  The  sub-com- 
mittees at  once  began  their  labors.  Expert  engineers  were  con- 
sulted, and  the  services  of  one  engineer  for  appraisal  purposes 
were  engaged.  In  the  introduction  to  the  published  reports  of 
the  sub-committees,  City  Clerk  Charles  A.  Nichols  says: 

"  For  practically  one  year  members  of  the  Committee  of  Fifty 
and  its  sub-committees  with  their  various  expert  assistants 
worked  hand  in  hand  on  this  task  of  vast  importance  to  the  haif- 
million  residents  of  Detroit,  and  the  results  of  their  labors  are  set 
forth  in  detail. 

"  The  various  reports  of  sub-committees  approved  by  the  gen- 
eral committee  were  thus  made  the  general  report  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Fifty  on  December  6,  1909.  These  reports  were  turned 
over  to  the  mayor  and  upon  a  vote  of  the  common  council,  be- 
came the  property  of  the  city." 


126       THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 

As  a  result  of  the  pains-taking  labor  of  the  various  sub-com- 
mittees, what  has  been  deemed  to  be  the  most  logical  solution  of 
the  street  railway  problem  ever  presented  to  a  municipality  was 
evolved.     Briefly  stated,  the  concrete  judgment 
Clyde-Webster      of  the  best  busings  men  of  the  city  of  Detroit 

was  embraced  by  the  Clyde- Webster  Ordinance, 
which  was  submitted  to  the  council,  Tuesday,  March  15,  1910, 
and  printed  in  the  official  proceedings.  After  specifying  the 
streets  upon  which  the  city  railway  could  operate,  including  the 
existing  lines  and  additional  extensions  commensurate  with  the 
growth  of  the  city,  the  ordinance  went  into  details  and  fully 
protected  the  rights  of  the  citizens  and  taxpayers.  In  this  ordi- 
nance, the  city  reserved  the  right  through  its  common  council 
and  commission  as  thereinafter  provided,  to  alter,  change  and  re- 
arrange any  of  the  routes  specified.  I  do  not  give  these  routes, 
because  many  of  my  hearers  are  not  familiar  with  the  typographi- 
cal and  geographical  situation  of  the  city  of  Detroit  In  addition 
to  this  reservation,  the  ordinance  reserved  the  right  to  the  city, 
through  its  common  council  upon  recommendation  by  the  street 
railway  commission,  to  acquire  additional  lines  of  railway,  to 
be  constructed,  maintained  and  operated  in  accordance  with  the 
further  provisions  of  the  ordinance. 

This  ordinance  specified  that  all  tracks  should  be  of  modern 
construction  and  firm  foundations,  the  plan  of  construction  and 
the  construction  itself  to  be  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  street 
railway  commission.  The  commission  under  the  ordinance  was 
further  given  power  to  order  spur  tracks,  to  be  connected  in  such 
manner  as  might  be  deemed  the  best  at  or  near  factories  and 
other  places,  where  large  numbers  of  people  are  employed  and  at 
other  points  of  congested  travel  on  which  at  certain  hours  cars 
might  be  stored  ready  for  use  when  needed  to  relieve  the  traffic 
congestion.  Under  this  ordinance  the  cost  of  such  additional  con- 
struction was  to  have  been  added  to  the  capital  value.  Section 
four  of  the  ordinance  specifies  that  the  company  should  com- 
mence construction  of  all  additional  tracks  therein  provided  for 
immediately  upon  the  acceptance  of  the  ordinance,  and  said  addi- 
tional tracks  should  be  completely  constructed,  fully  equipped  and 
in  operation  within  eighteen  months  from  the  date  of  the  ac- 


PAUL  LEAKE  127 

ceptance  of  the  ordinance  by  the  Detroit  United  Railway.  This 
period  of  eighteen  months,  however,  was  subject  to  an  exten- 
sion by  the  common  council  upon  the  recommendation  of  the 
commission,  provided  the  latter  showed  that  the  company  acted 
in  good  faith  and  could  not,  for  physical  reasons,  keep  within 
the  letter  of  the  contract.  All  of  the  work  to  be  done  in  these  ex- 
tensions under  this  ordinance  was  to  be  with  the  approval  and 
under  the  supervision  and  inspection  of  the  street  railway  com- 
mission. The  cost  of  supervision  and  inspecting  the  work  of  said 
tracks  was  to  be  paid  for  by  the  company,  and  charged  to  operat- 
ing expenses.  The  cost  to  the  company  of  these  additional  tracks 
and  equipment  was  to  be  added  to  the  capital  value. 

Section  six  of  the  ordinance  specified  that  the  acceptance  of 
the  same  by  the  company  should  constitute  a  complete  surrender 
and  release  of  all  and  every  one  of  the  rights  and  claims  of  the 
company  of  every  kind  and  manner  in  the  streets  in  the  city  of 
Detroit  on  and  after  December  4,  1924. 

Section  seven  specified  that  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  the  basis 
from  which  the  returns  of  the  company  for  the  service  rendered 
by  it  to  the  public  should  be  further  determined,  and  for  tKe 
further  purpose  of  fixing  the  price  at  which  the  property  of  the 
company  might  be  purchased  as  thereinafter  provided  for,  the 
capital  value  of  all  the  property  of  the  company  within  the  city 
of  Detroit  was  to  consist  wholly  of  the  value  of  its  physical  prop- 
erties which  was  agreed  to  be  on  the  first  day  of  October,  1909, 

of  the  value  of dollars,  together  with  the  franchise  value 

and  which  was  agreed  to  be  on  the  same  date  to  the  value  of 

dollars.  These  values  are  significant,  and  herein  lies 

the  great  stumbling  block  against  which  the  business  men  forming 
the  committee  of  fifty  stumbled,  in  striving  to  arrive  at  a  solu-. 
tion  of  this  serious  problem.  In  order  to  facilitate  matters,  the 
street  car  company  put  to  work  a  large  force  of  expert  clerks 
on  an  appraisal  or  inventory  of  the  property  of  the  Detroit 
United  Railway,  furnishing  to  the  committee  of  fifty  copies  of 
the  reports  made  by  the  Detroit  United  Railway  experts. 

The  company  said  openly,  privately  and  consistently  that  it 
only  desired  a  fair  settlement  of  the  question,  and  was  perfectly 
willing  to  leave  the  details  of  that  settlement  to  the  good  judg- 


128       THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 

ment  of  the  business  men  on  the  committee  of  fifty.  The  cor- 
poration promised  co-operation  with  the  committee  of  fifty,  and 
its  sub-committees  at  all  times,  throw  open  for  inspection  its 
records  and  books,  even  going  so  far  as  to  furnish  Frederick  T. 
Barcroft,  employed  by  the  committee  of  fifty,  with  a  duplicate 
copy  of  every  inventory  taken  by  the  company.  This  inventory 
took  some  three  months  to  compile,  keeping  a  force  of  200  clerks 
busy.  It  embraced  40,000  typewritten  pages,  including  blue 
prints,  plans  and  specifications,  every  bolt,  nut,  bar,  screw,  ham- 
mer, screw-driver  and  piece  of  wire  belonging  to  the  company 
was  noted  in  this  comprehensive  compilation. 

Mr.  Barcroft,  on  behalf  of  the  committee  of  fifty,  demanded 

that  the  Detroit  United  Railway  furnish  a  statement  of  values 

upon   the  basis   of   reconstruction  of  the  city 

Reconstruction  Pr°Perties>  and  while  this  was  not  contemplated 
in  the  original  inventory  taken  by  the  Detroit 
United  Railway,  Vice-President  and  General  Manager  Frank 
W.  Brooks  decided  to  grant  the  request,  and  furnished  Mr.  Bar- 
croft, as  consulting  engineer  of  the  committee  of  fifty,  with  a  de- 
tailed statement  of  the  cost  of  reconstruction,  which  is  as  fol- 
lows: 

Real  estate $993,294.28 

Buildings   902,291.25 

Power  plants   2,651,137.19 

Battery  stations 429,068.45 

Power  distributions   2,010,739.50 

Track 9,349,407.20 

Rolling  stock 5,129,954.00 

Shops 984,1 16.94 

Tools,  machinery,  etc 981,028.73 

Paving 1,219,816.57 

Other  items  25,327.54 

Total $24,676,181.75 

This  ordinance,  the  pains-taking  result  of  the  most  pains- 
taking labors  of  the  sub-committee  of  fifty,  most  thoroughly  took 
care  of  the  rights  of  the  city,  and  went  on  to  state  that  the 
bonded  indebtedness  of  the  company  and  the  par  value  of  the 
stock  which  had  been  issued  should  not  be  taken  into  considera- 


PAUL  LEAKE  129 

tion,  but  the  capital  value  as  determined  there  should  be  added 
from  time  to  time  the  cost  of  all  additional  tracks  and  equip- 
ment, provide'd  for  in  the  ordinance  and  all  expenses,  betterments 
and  permanent  improvements  thereafter  made,  which  the  com- 
mission should  approve,  should  be  added  to  capital  value. 

It  was  specified  that  the  cost  of  any  extensions,  betterments  and 

permanent  improvements  made  since  October  i,  1909,  should  be 

also   added   to  the   capital   value,   the   railway 

commission  to  agree  with  the  company  upon  that 
Ordinance  .  ... 

amount,  or  in  the  case  of  disagreement  as  to  the 

amount  to  be  adde'd  to  capital  value,  the  disputed  question  should 
be  determined  by  the  board  of  arbitration,  to  be  selected  in  a 
manner  provided  for  later  in  the  ordinance,  which  will  be  de- 
scribed by  me  later  on.  The  decision  of  such  a  board  of  arbi- 
tration as  to  the  value  of  said  property  was  to  be  final. 

Upon  the  capital  value  as  set  forth  and  determined  by  the 
commission,  agreed  with  the  company  or  decided  upon  by  the 
board  of  arbitration,  the  ordinance  specified  that  the  company 
should  be  entitled  to  the  return  of  interest  of  6  per  cent  per 
annum  on  the  capital  invested,  interest  to  be  reckoned  from  the 
date  of  the  effect  of  the  new  ordinance.  The  rate  of  fare  of  this 
ordinance  was  to  be  so  adjusted  from  time  to  time  as  to  enable 
the  company  to  pay  such  income  and  interest  and  no  more,  and 
the  cost  of  operation,  maintenance  and  renewals. 

The  ordinance  further  specified  that  should  the  company  at 
any  time  desire  to  sell  any  property  owned  by  it,  the  company 
must  first  secure  the  permission  of  the  commission,  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sale  thereof  either  to  be  reinvested  in  property 
owned  by  the  company  or  deducted  from  the  amount  of  capital 
invested,  as  determined  by  the  commission,  the  decision  of  which 
shall  be  final.  Provision  was  made  to  the  effect  that  no  action 
should  be  taken  as  to  selling  any  property  if  the  same  conflicted 
with  the  provisions  of  any  bonds  governing  the  said  properties. 
Subject  to  the  approval  of  the  commission,  the  company  under 
this  ordinance  would  have  been  compelled  to  acquire  additional 
property  to  anticipate  the  reasonable  needs  of  service,  and  the 
cost  of  such  additional  property  was  to  be  added  to  the  capital 
value. 


130 


THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 


Going  further  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  taxpayers,  section 
nine  of  the  ordinance  provided  that  there  should  be  no  increase 
in  the  capital  value  of  the  company  and  no  addition  or  further 
bond  issue,  which  could  be  added  to  capital  value  upon  which 
the  company  should  be  entitled  to  6  per  cent  interest  per  annum, 
excepting  for  the  purpose  of  securing  funds  to  make  extensions, 
betterments  and  permanent  improvements  and  then  not  to  exceed 
the  cost  thereof,  and  this  could  only  be  done  by  and  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  commission  and  the  common  council.  It  was  also 
specified  that  such  stocks  and  bonds  should  be  only  sold  at  par, 
with  the  approval  of  the  commission  and  the  common  council ; 
however,  said  stocks  and  bonds  might  be  sold  below  par,  but  in 
such  case  only  the  amount  realized  therefrom  should  be  added 
to  capital  value,  and  draw  six  per  cent  interest  per  annum. 
Another  provision  of  this  comprehensive  street  railway  law  was 
to  the  effect  that  all  bonds  should  be  sold  to  the  highest  bidders, 
and  that  at  the  expiration  of  this  grant,  the  commission  and  com- 
pany should  come  to  an  equitable  adjustment  of  the  difference 
between  any  bonds  that  might  have  been  sold  below  par,  and  the 
face  value  of  said  bonds,  and  in  case  the  commission  and  the  com- 
pany could  not  agree,  the  matter  was  to  be  referred  to  the  board 
of  arbitration. 

Section  ten  of  the  ordinance  provided  for  the  creation  of  the 

city  street  railway  commission,  to  consist  of  five  members  to  be 

appointed  by  the  mayor,  with  the  approval  of 

Commission  ^e  counc^>  as  soon  as  tne  ordinance  should  be- 

come effective.  The  terms  of  the  first  five  mem- 
bers appointed  were  to  be  one,  two,  three,  four  and  five  years  re- 
spectively, after  which  one  member  of  the  commission  should  be 
appointed  by  the  mayor,  with  the  consent  of  the  common  council, 
in  each  year,  to  serve  the  term  of  five  years.  The  ordinance  also 
specified  that  no  member  of  said  street  railway  commission  should 
take  or  accept  any  other  public  office  during  the  terms  for  which 
he  should  have  been  appointed,  and  that  any  commissioner  be- 
coming a  candidate  for  or  accepting  any  other  public  office  should 
have  been  deemed  to  have  vacated  his  office  as  street  railway  com- 
missioner, and  such  vacancy  should  at  once  be  filled  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  successor  under  the  terms  already  described.  The 


PAUL  LEAKE  13! 

commission  thus  created  by  the  ordinance  was  to  have  been  non- 
salaried.  The  salary  of  a  secretary  and  all  expenses  of  said  com- 
mission, including  the  salaries  of  whatever  accountants,  engi- 
neers, assistants  and  clerks  might  be  necessary  in  the  discretion 
of  the  commission,  was  to  be  paid  by  the  company  and  charged 
to  operation  expenses,  the  entire  amount  of  which  salaries  and 
expenses  was  not  to  exceed  in  any  one  month  one  per  cent  of  the 
total  operating  expenses.  In  addition  to  the  powers  and  duties, 
provided  for  in  the  various  sections  of  the  ordinance,  the  com- 
mission was  to  have  had  the  power  to  control  the  service  as  to 
quality,  frequency  and  number  of  cars,  including  the  right  of 
fixing  the  schedules  of  service  and  the  right  to  route  and  re-route 
cars,  all  of  which  was  to  have  been  approved  by  the  common 
council.  Tfie  commission  was  to  supervise  the  methods  of  ac- 
counting and  bookkeeping  of  the  company,  to  have  free  access  to 
the  books  of  the  company  at  all  times,  with  the  power  of  audit- 
ing same,  to  see  to  it  that  there  was  proper  vouchering  of  the  ex- 
penses of  the  company,  and  that  their  books  and  accounts  were 
correctly  and  honestly  kept,  and  to  require  from  the  company 
monthly  statements  of  car  mileage,  passengers  carried,  gross  in- 
come from  all  sources,  operating  expenses  and  all  other  expenses 
and  such  other  statements  and  reports  as  they  might  deem  nec- 
essary, and  to  see  to  it  that  all  moneys  received  and  disbursed  by 
the  company  were  properly  accounted  for,  and  to  have  the  power 
to  make  changes  in  the  system  of  bookkeeping  and  vouchering 
if  such  were  necessary. 

The  commission  under  this  ordinance  was  to  have  the  power 
to  pass  upon  the  type  of  cars,  schedules  and  the  carriage  of  all 
equipments  and  appliances,  and  approval  and  distribution  of  the 
use  thereof,  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  common  council. 

The  commission  was  to  pass  upon  all  appraisals  of  recom- 
mendation made  by  the  company.  It  was  also  to  decide,  subject 
to  the  approval  of  the  common  council,  when  stocks  and  bonds 
might  be  issued  by  the  company  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
funds  for  additional  tracks  and  the  equipment  of  same,  and  for 
expenses,  betterments  and  permanent  improvements,  which  stocks 
and  bonds  were  to  be  added  to  the  capital  value  and  upon  which 
six  per  cent  interest  per  annum  was  to  be  paid  as  provided  for  in 
the  ordinance. 


132 


THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 


The  commission  was  further  to  see  to  it  that  the  property  of 
the  company  was  kept  up  to  a  standard  required  by  the  ordi- 
nance, and  that  the  cost  of  keeping  the  system  up  to  this  standard 
was  to  be  met  from  the  depreciation  of  displacements,  and  re- 
newal funds,  as  provided  for  in  the  law.  It  was  to  further  de- 
cide at  all  times  whether  the  expenses  of  renewal  and  replace- 
ments, repair,  betterments  and  improvements,  extension  and  ex- 
penses of  the  company  of  widening  streets,  strengthening  the 
bridges  and  culverts,  separating  grades,  the  cost  of  power-houses, 
switches,  sidings,  car-houses,  shops,  rolling  stock,  cars  and  con- 
verting cars  into  another  type,  machinery,  or  other  property,  to 
be  charged  to  operating  expenses  and  taken  out  of  the  replace- 
ment fund  and  made  the  subject  of  the  bond  issue,  and  in  addi- 
tion to  the  capital  value. 

The  commission  was  to  have  the  further  power  to  decide  upon 
and  authorize,  with  the  approval  of  the  common  council,  changes 
of  equipment  or  source  of  power  or  methods  of  propulsion,  and 
to  decide  whether  the  cost  thereof  should  be  charged  to  operat- 
ing expenses  or  taken  out  of  the  replacement  fund,  or  made  the 
subject  of  a  bond  issue. 

The  commission  under  this  ordinance  had  the  power  to  ap- 
prove of  the  operating  expenses  and  replacements  of  the  com- 
pany, and  to  specify  that  there  should  be  no  unusual  salaries  of 
officials,  officers,  directors,  agents,  attorneys  or  employees  of 
the  company.  The  commission  was  given  power  to  object  to  the 
amount  paid  to  any  agent,  director,  employee,  officer,  attorney 
or  official,  and  if  the  commission  and  the  company  could  not  agree 
thereon,  on  the  question  as  to  the  amount  to  be  paid,  the  ques- 
tion was  to  be  decided  by  the  board  of  arbitration. 

The  commission  was  empowered,  by  and  with  the  consent  of 
the  common  council,  to  decide  at  the  period  of  each  adjustment 
of  accounts  with  the  company  whether  the  rate  of  fare  should 
be  continued,  raised  or  lowered.  The  commission  had  the  power 
to  prescribe  the  terms  and  conditions,  by  and  with  the  consent  of 
the  common  council,  under  which  freight,  express  and  merchan- 
dise on  suburban  cars  should  be  allowed  to  run  upon  city 
tracks,  to  the  amounts  which  should  have  been  paid  for  such 
privilege.  The  commission  was  also  empowered  to  decide  at  all 


PAUL  LEAKE  133 

times  as  to  the  necessity  of  repaying  or  repairing  of  pavements 
between  the  tracks.  It  was  also  empowered  to  suggest  to  tfie 
common  council  from  time  to  time  the  enactment  of  whatever 
ordinances  the  commission  might  deem  necessary  to  insure  the 
proper  collection  of  all  fares,  and  to  prevent  any  improper  use 
of  transfers  or  free  transportation,  and  to  recommend  to  the 
council  regulations  respecting  the  operation  of  the  railway  and 
to  report  all  violations  of  the  ordinance  by  the  company  to  the 
common  council. 

Section  eleven  of  this  model  ordinance — which  never  saw  day- 
light, as  far  as  the  voters  are  concerned,  being  smothered  in  the 
council  until  too  late  to  be  submitted  at  this  general  election — 
specifies  that  upon  taking  effect  of  the  ordinance,  the  corpora- 
tion operating  the  street  railways  in  the  city  of  Detroit  should 
open  a  new  set  of  books  and  keep  separate  the  city  books  of  the 
company  from  its  suburban  traffic. 

Then  this  model  law  which  was  shelved  and  sidetracked  by  the 
politicians  in  the  corporation  counsel's  office,  goes  into  the  ques- 
tion of  fares.  It  states  that  the  minimum  rate  of  fare  for  a 
single  ride  within  the  city  limits  in  any  one  di- 
BatesofFare  rection  over  any  route  of  the  company  should 
be  ten  tickets  for  25  cents,  24  hours,  upon  all  lines  within  city 
limits,  universal  transfers,  and  including  said  minimum  rate, 
the  following  schedule  or  schedules  of  fares  was  to  be  used : 

A.  Ten  tickets  for  25  cents,  24  hours,  upon  all  lines. 

B.  Ten  tickets  for  25  cents,  from  5  a.  m.  to  8  p.  m.,  and  8  tickets 

for  25  cents,  from  8  p.  m.  to  5  a.  m.,  upon  all  lines. 

C.  Eight  tickets  for  25  cents,  24  hours,  upon  all  lines,  with  uni- 

versal transfers. 

D.  Eight  tickets  for  25  cents,  workingmen's    hours,  7  tickets  for 

25  cents  during  the  remainder  of  the  24  hours,  upon  all 
lines  with  universal  transfers. 

E.  Eight  tickets  for  25  cents,  from  5  a.  m.,  to  8  p.  m.,  and  6 

tickets  for  25  cents  from  8  p.  m.  to  5  a.  m.,  all  lines,  with 
universal  transfers. 

F.  Eight  tickets  for  25  cents,  during  workingmen's  hours,  and  7 

tickets  for  25  cents  during  the  remainder  of  the  day,  until 
8  p.  m.  Six  tickets  for  25  cents,  from  8  a.  m.  to  5  p.  m.,  all 
lines,  with  universal  transfers. 

G.  The  maximum  rate  of  fare  shall  be  8  tickets  for  25  cents,  dur- 


134 


THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 


ing  workingmen's  hours,  and  6  tickets  for  25  cents,  during 
the  remainder  of  the  24  hours. 

H.  Five-cent  cash  fare  shall  be  charged  for  single  fare  not 
paid  for  by  ticket. 

I.  Children  six  years  and  under  accompanied  by  persons  paying 
fare  may  ride  free.  For  two  such  children,  one  fare. 

J.  Whenever  the  term  workingmen's  hours  are  used  in  the  ordi- 
nance, it  was  taken  to  mean  from  5  to  8  a.  m.  and  from 
4 :  30  to  6 :  30  p.  m. 

K.  The  term  universal  transfer  was  deemed  to  mean  a  transfer 
to  the  point  of  destination  by  the  nearest  available  route, 
to  be  issued  for  each  fare  paid,  to  be  non-transferable,  lim- 
ited to  use  after  arrival  at  point  of  intersection  of  first 
available  car  passing  said  point  of  intersection.  Good  ten 
minutes. 

The  law  further  specified  that  all  of  the  properties  of  the  com- 
pany within  the  present  and  future  city  limits  of  Detroit  should 
be  properly  placed  upon  an  ad  valorem  basis,  the  same  as  the 
property  of  any  individual. 

Section  eighteen  of  the  ordinance  provided  that  all  paving  be- 
tween the  outer  rails,  whether  single  or  double  tracks,  should  be 
done  by  the  company.  This  section  embraced  all  lines  within 
the  city  limits,  including  those  under  the  original  grant,  the  pav- 
ing of  which  the  city  was  responsible  for. 

The  ordinance  further  created  a  depreciation,  replacement  and 
rolling-stock  fund,  and  decreed  that  there  should  be  set  aside 
and  placed  to  the  credit  of  this  fund  monthly,  from  the  gross  re- 
ceipts of  the  company,  a  sum  equivalent  to  three  cents  for  each 
revenue  car  mile  for  the  month,  and  the  company  upon  accepting 
the  ordinance,  was  to  agree  to  maintain  the  entire  system  at  a 
standard  of  70  per  cent  of  the  cost  of  reproduction. 

It  was  also  specified  that  all  cars  operated  by  the  company 
should  be  of  modern  type,  with  double  trucks,  to  be  approved 
by  the  commission  and  to  be  equipped  from  time  to  time  with 
modern  appliances,  such  as  automatic  ventilators,  noise-reducing 
appliances,  etc.,  to  add  to  the  safety  and  comfort  of  the  public, 
as  might  be  approved  by  the  commission.  The  new  cars  to  be 
built  by  the  company,  for  the  additional  cars  provided  for  in  the 
ordinance,  and  all  other  new  cars  were  to  have  been  approved  by 
the  commission.  It  is  also  specified  that  all  cars  were  to  be  kept 


PAUL  LEAKE  135 

thoroughly  clean,  both  inside  and  outside,  thoroughly  heated, 
properly  appointed,  and  the  equipment  to  be  maintained  in  a  high 
state  of  efficiency. 

Section  thirty-one  specifies  that  in  case  of  any  differences  aris^ 
ing  between  the  company  and  commission,  and  the  common  coun- 
cil, with  regard  to  any  of  the  rights  thereunder,  either  party 

might  require  such  question  or  questions  to  be 
Board  of  submitted  to  the  board  of  arbitration.    The  se- 

Arbitration  .         **«•"».  u  r  n  -ru 

lection  of  this  board  to  be  as   follows:     The 

city  to  appoint  its  representative,  the  company  its,  each  to  notify 
the  other  of  such  appointment,  together  with  a  notice  of  the  ques- 
tion upon  which  arbitration  is  demanded.  The  parties  so  noti- 
fied, within  ten  days  thereafter,  would  be  compelled  to  appoint 
its  representative  and  the  two  parties  appointed  should,  within 
ten  days  thereafter,  appoint  a  third  arbitrator ;  either  party  failing 
or  refusing  to  appoint  same  within  ten  days,  the  appointment  was 
to  be  made  by  the  person  who  was  United  States  district  judge 
for  the  eastern  district  of  Michigan.  If  the  two  representatives 
were  unable  to  agree  upon  a  third  arbitrator  within  ten  days,  they 
should  then  apply  to  the  said  judge  of  the  eastern  district  of 
Michigan  to  make  such  appointment,  and  such  judge  should  then 
have  the  power  to  appoint  such  third  arbitrator.  When  such 
third  arbitrator  hereby  should  have  been  appointed,  the  three 
would  have  constituted  a  board  of  arbitration,  a  majority  of 
which  would  have  power  to  decide  the  question  or  questions  sub- 
mitted. Whenever  any  board  of  arbitration  provided  for  in 
the  ordinance  should  consider  or  determine  any  matters  its  de- 
cision was  to  be  final. 

Under  the  terms  of  the  ordinance,  which  as  stated  before  was 
never  submitted  to  the  people,  the  company  bound  itself  to  file 
with  the  city  clerk  a  bond  in  the  penal  sum  of  $100,000,  that  it 
would  comply  with  all  of  the  terms  and  conditions  of  the  ordi- 
nance and  that  it  would  forever  save  to  the  city  and  protect  it 
against  and  from  all  damages,  judgments,  decrees  and  expenses 
which  the  company  might  suffer  or  which  might  be  obtained 
against  said  city  for  and  by  reason  of  the  grant  of  the  privileges 
to  the  company  and  by  reason  of  any  damage  to  life,  limb  or 
property  caused  by  the  running  of  cars  of  the  company. 


I36       THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 

Section  thirty-six  of  the  ordinance  specified  that  its  acceptance 
by  the  company  and  the  taking  effect  thereon  constituted  a  sur- 
render and  termination  of  all  grants  and  franchises  of  every 
kind  received,  acquired  and  owned  by  the  corporation,  which  in 
any  manner  might  apply  to  or  effect  street  railways  owned  and 
operated  by  the  Detroit  United  Railway  within  the  city  of  De- 
troit and  the  company  agreed  by  the  acceptance  of  the  ordinance 
to  obligate  itself  to  fully  comply  with  all  these  terms  and  con- 
ditions. 

This,  in  brief  is  the  result  of  the  pains-taking  work  of  the  best 
business  men  of  the  city  of  Detroit,  and  will,  in  my  estimation, 
forever  stand  as  a  monument  to  their  judgment  and  integrity. 

I  have  purposely  omitted  going  into  the  municipal  ownership 
phase  of  the  question  until  I  had  thoroughly  covered  the  ground 
of  the  regulations  proposed  as  a  result  of  the  labors  of  the  com- 
mittee of  fifty.  B~ut  it  is  appropriate  to  here  give  a  report  of  the 
sub-committee  on  municipal  ownership.  This  is  self-explana- 
tory, and  is  so  thorough  that  it  needs  no  explanation.  It  is  as 
follows : 

Your  committee  on  municipal  ownership,  to  whom  was  as- 
signed the  duty  of  investigating  the  practical  working  of  the 
municipal  ownership  of  public  utilities  and  of 
Municipal  considering  the  advisability  of  the  municipal 

Ownership  ownership  and  operation  of  the  street  railway 

of  Detroit,  beg  to  report  as  follows : 

Municipal  undertaking  in  the  United  States  is  at  present  con- 
fined to  the  utilities  of  water,  gas  and  electric  light.  These  un- 
dertakings differ  from  the  undertaking  of  street  railway  trans- 
portation in  two  important  particulars :  Amount  of  capital  invest- 
ment and  number  of  employees  required. 

With  the  exception  of  a  line  a  few  miles  long  in  Monroe,  Louis- 
iana, a  town  of  5,428  inhabitants,  the  United  States  has  no  muni- 
cipality owned  and  operated  street  railway.  The  subways  of  New 
York  and  Boston  are  the  leading  instances  of  municipal  owner- 
ship and  private  operation. 

Both  Cleveland  and  Chicago  have,  for  several  years,  been  en- 
gaged in  attempts  to  reach  a  satisfactory  settlement  of  their  street 
railway  transportation  problems.  Each  city  has  had  to  contend 
with  inadequate  charter  provisions  which  has  necessitated  a  com- 
promise. In  Cleveland  this  compromise  took  the  form,  tem- 
porarily, of  a  holding  company,  which,  while  experimenting  to 


PAUL  LEAKE  137 

find  the  lowest  possible  rate  of  fare  commensurate  with  good  ser- 
vice, fell  ignominiously  into  the  hands  of  a  receiver.  In  Chicago 
a  working  agreement  was  arranged,  to  hold  through  a  period  of 
rehabilitation  and  containing  a  "  provisional  purchase  "  clause, 
awaiting  an  enabling  act  by  the  legislature  carrying  a  plan  to 
finance  the  purchase  of  its  street  railways  which  would  stand  the 
test  of  the  courts.  The  city,  meanwhile,  through  a  profit-sharing 
arrangement  included  in  the  "  agreement  accumulating  a  fund 
with  which  to  make  a  partial  payment  upon  the  traction  prop- 
erties if,  when  the  legal  disability  shall  be  finally  removed,  the 
people  of  Chicago  are  still  eager  to  experiment  with  municipal 
ownership."  These  experiments  in  Cleveland  and  Chicago  may 
be  termed  quasi-municipalization. 

Your  committee  has,  therefore,  been  unable  to  secure  facts  as 
to  the  actual  working  of  municipal  ownership  excepting  from 
European  cities.  The  congested  condition  of  European  cities, 
while  most  undesirable  from  the  standpoint  of  health  or  com- 
fort, yet  insures  a  heavy,  short-haul  traffic.  This,  with  fares 
based  on  the  zone  system,  no  free  transfers,  low  wages  and  in- 
ferior service,  materially  reduces  the  cost  of  transportation. 

From  information  gathered  by  your  committee  on  statistics, 
the  fact  is  established  that  the  wages  of  motormen  and  conductors 
in  European  cities  average  but  eleven  cents  per  hour,  as  compared 
with  twenty-three  to  twenty-five  cents  in  American  cities. 

Your  committee  found  no  condition  attending  municipal  owner- 
ship in  European  cities  which  seemed  desirable  excepting  an  ap- 
parently lower  rate  of  fare,  and  this  made  possible  only  through 
the  existence  of  conditions  which  Americans  would  regard  as  in- 
tolerable. 

Anxiety  that  municipallyj-managed  utilities  should  make  a 
creditable  showing  often  leads  to  methods  of  accounting  by  which 
many  items  of  expense  and  the  interest  upon  the  bonds  issued  to 
purchase  or  construct  such  utility  are  charged  to  the  city's  gen- 
eral interest  and  expense  account,  instead  of  being  properly  made 
a  charge  upon  the  earnings  of  the  utility  for  which  incurred. 

Before  any  municipal  undertaking  may  be  classed  as  success- 
ful, two  facts  must  be  established  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  tax- 
payers : 

(1)  Would  a  rigid  system  of  accounting,  with  every  legitimate 
expense  charged  to  the  utility  operated  rather  than  to  some  gen- 
eral fund,  with  proper  allowance  for  interest  on  the  investment, 
depreciation,  obsolescence  and  sinking  fund  leave  a  balance  upon 
the  right  side  of  the  municipal  ledger? 

(2)  Is  the  standard  of  operation,  service,  wages,  and  general 
up-keep  such  that  it  would  be  satisfactory  to  the  people  of  an 
American  city? 


138       THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT 

Comparison  of  existing  municipal  street  railway  undertakings 
in  foreign  cities  being  found  of  little  value  for  the  purpose  of  our 
investigation,  your  committee  has  considered  the  subject  under 
the  following  heads : 

(1)  What  will  municipal  ownership  of  the  street  railways  of 
Detroit  cost? 

(2)  Can  Detroit  afford  to  make  the  investment? 

(3)  Is  it  desirable  to  assume  the  burden;  to  assume  the  respon- 
sibility of  a  costly  experiment  with  no  definite  assurance  that 
cheaper  fare  could  be  provided  without  affecting  the  quality  of 
service  ? 

As  the  franchise  of  the  Detroit  United  Railway  which  expired 
on  November  14,  1909,  covered  only  a  part  of  the  city  system, 
unless  an  advantageous  purchase  of  the  remain- 
Tlie  Cost  ing  lines  can  be  made  by  the  city,  municipal 

ownership  can  be  only  partial  for  at  least  four- 
teen years,  at  least  not  unless  the  city  shall  engage  in  a  costly 
work  of  paralleling  such  lines.  Two  systems  would  mean  two 
fares  in  many  cases  now  covered  by  transfer. 

The  legal  rights  to  own  and  operate  a  street  railway,  if  the 
people  so  vote,  is  now  secured  to  Detroit;  extension  of  the  bond 
limit,  now  also  possible  if  voted,  would  insure  a  part  of  the  pur- 
chase price.  Unfortunately,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  higher  the  per- 
centage of  the  bonded  debt  of  a  municipality  to  the  value  of  its 
taxable  property,  the  higher  the  rate  of  interest  required  to 
market  its  bonds.  In  Detroit  the  amount  which  the  municipaliza- 
tion  of  the  street  railway  system  would  require  would,  when 
added  to  the  present  bonded  debt,  so  largely  increase  the  per- 
centage of  bonded  debt  to  taxable  property  as  to  exclude  the 
bonds  from  Savings  Banks'  investment. 

Immediate  municipal  ownership  of  Detroit's  street  railways 
would  involve: 

The  amount  of  the  appraisal  of  the  Committee  of  Fifty  plus 
several  million  dollars  for  betterments  and  extensions,  includ- 
ing the  fifty-seven  miles  of  new  track  recommended  by  the  com- 
mittee on  extensions  and  rearrangement,  which  are  imperative  if 
the  city  is  to  have  proper  service  and  which  the  Detroit  United 
Railway  or  any  other  company  would  be  required  to  assure  the 
city  in  order  to  secure  further  operating  privileges.  In  the 
matter  of  cost  must  be  included  the  heavy  demand  which  must 
be  met  in  the  not  distant  future  for  the  construction  of  a  sub- 
way as  outlined  by  the  committee  on  extensions  and  rearrange- 
ment, also  interest  on  the  bonds  issued  to  effect  the  purchase,  a 
loss  of  taxes  in  1908  amounting  to  $134,842.63. 

This  enlarged  field  for  damage  claims  against  the  city  would 
be  found  no  inconsiderable  item  of  expense. 


PAUL  LEAKE 


139 


A  comparison  of  Detroit's  bonded  indebtedness  with  that  of 
other  cities  to-day  is  all  in  Detroit's  favor,  being  far  below  that  of 
other  cities  of  the  same  class.    Any  plan  to  in- 
Can  Detroit  crease  the  debt  of  the  city  must  take  into  ac- 

Afford  the  count  the  normal  demands  certain  to  be  made 

Investment  upon  the  taxpayers  from  year  to  year. 

Detroit's  tax  rate  this  year  is  $18  per  thou- 
sand. In  order  to  keep  the  rate  down  as  low  as  this  the  common 
council  and  board  of  estimates  are  annually  driven  to  the  doubt- 
ful economy  of  cutting  appropriations  for  expenditures  wholly 
desirable  and  almost  indispensable  in  order  to  prevent  too  great 
a  drain  upon  the  resources  of  the  average  taxpayer. 

Under  the  tax  rate  of  recent  years  pavements  have  often  nec- 
essarily been  allowed  to  remain  in  deplorable  condition;  the 
present  tax  rate,  which  is  the  cause  of  some  dissatisfaction  be- 
cause more  than  two  dollars  higher  than  last  year,  is  still  insuffi- 
cient to  place  the  pavements  in  an  entirely  satisfactory  condition. 
Three  much-needed  school  building  appropriations  were  disal- 
lowed this  year  and  there  is  a  generally  admitted  need  of  more 
play-grounds  and  bath-houses.  The  board  of  water  commission- 
ers contemplate  extensive  improvements  approximating  two  and 
a  quarter  million  dollars.  While  this  expenditure  will  be  spread 
over  a  period  of  several  years,  the  increased  water  tax  necessary 
to  provide  for  this  expenditure  will  increase  the  amount  the  tax- 
payer and  patron  of  public  utilities  must  pay  for  the  privilege  en- 
joyed. 

As  a  municipality  we  are  seemingly  pushed  to  the  limit  of  our 
resources  to  perform  such  primary,  non-contentious  municipal 
undertakings,  as  having  no  element  of  profit  in  them  cannot  be 
left  to  private  enterprise. 

Do  taxpayers  desire  to  assume  the  responsibility  in  the  hope 
of  securing  cheaper  transportation? 

By  placing  the  street  railway  system  under  municipal  con- 
trol a  large  body  of  municipal  employees  is  created,  each  mem- 
ber having  a  vote.  The  management  is  made  to  reside  in  a  body 
politic,  subject  to  change  at  least  every  two  years.  Do  these 
conditions  indicate  a  fair  probability  that  such  efficiency  and 
economy  in  administration  and  operation  will  prevail  as  will  serve 
to  reduce  fares  in  a  sufficiently  large  degree  to  warrant  and 
render  advisable  the  faith  and  credit  of  the  city;  increasing  the 
bonded  debt  and  tax  rate? 

Will  not  the  increased  expenditure  add  to  the  burden  of  taxa- 
tion to  such  an  extent  as  to  react  upon  the  industrial  develop- 
ment of  the  city  and  drive  away  more  population  and  manu- 
facturing than  could  possibly  be  attracted  to  it  by  the  benefits 
these  expenditures  were  intended  to  secure? 


I4o       THE  STREET  RAILWAY  SITUATION  IN  DETROIT  , 

In  England  the  rapid  rate  of  increase  in  taxation,  largely  due 
to  increase  in  municipal  trading,  has  reached  an  alarming  stage. 
Statistics  show  that,  while  in  1880  the  local  debt  of  Great  Britain 
and  America  was  about  the  same,  during  the  ten  years  from 
1880-90  the  British  local  debt  advanced  at  the  rate  of  $30,000,- 
ooo  per  annum,  while  the  American  local  debt  increased  only  $4,- 
000,000  per  annum. 

In  1904-5  the  national  debt  of  Great  Britain  was  $91.68  per 
capita,  the  American  national  debt  at  the  same  time  being  only 
$11.91  per  capita,  while  in  New  Zealand  and  the  Australian  com- 
monwealth, where  municipal  ownership  is  so  largely  entered  into, 
the  per  capita  of  the  public  debt  was,  during  these  years,  in  the 
commonwealth,  $288.60,  and  in  New  Zealand,  $348.10. 

A  comparison  made  in  1904-5,  showing  the  average  indebted- 
ness of  18  principal  cities  of  Great  Britain  as  compared  with  18 
of  the  principal  American  cities,  shows: 

Per  capita  debt  of  American  cities $40.96 

Per  capita  of  British  cities 113.62 

Our  form  of  city  government  is  adapted  primarily  to  put  a  check 
on  expenditures.  There  is  no  machinery  for  a  progressive  busi- 
ness-like administration  of  any  department.  Questions  of  policy 
and  of  appropriations  must  be  argued  in  the  common  council  and 
board  of  estimates,  and  however  useful  such  a  system  may  be 
to  keep  the  tax  rate  within  bounds,  no  one  will  claim  that  an 
intricate  business  like  the  operation  of  a  great  railway  system 
should  be  left  to  the  decisions  of  bodies  of  men  inexperienced  in 
the  particular  problems  involved.  It  is  no  answer  to  say  that  the 
management  might  be  in  the  hands  of  a  commission  composed 
of  able  business  men.  Success  in  one  business  does  not  qualify 
a  man  to  succeed  in  managing  another  wholly  dissimilar  business. 
Moreover,  men  competent  to  make  profits  cannot  afford  to  give 
their  services  to  secure  profits  for  a  city.  Nor  is  the  management 
of  a  street  railway  calculated  to  draw  men  into  the  service  for  the 
sake  of  honor,  since  the  occupation  is  beset  with  difficulties  and 
anxieties.  Responsibility  for  life  and  property  is  in  the  highest 
degree  burdensome,  and  the  dealings  with  an  army  of  employees 
on  the  one  hand  and  with  the  public  on  the  other  require  tact 
and  experience  which  command  a  high  price  in  the  labor  market. 
With  profit  to  the  individual  as  an  incentive  to  economy  in  ad- 
ministration eliminated  with  our  municipalities  as  at  present  or- 
ganized, tenure  of  office  tried  and  with  politics  entering  so  largely 
into  municipal  elections,  it  is  a  matter  of  grave  doubt  in  the 
minds  of  your  committee  as  to  whether  the  conduct  of  an  under- 
taking requiring  experience  for  efficient  management,  could  be 
operated  by  the  municipality  to  the  profit  either  of  the  taxpayer 
or  the  car  patron. 


PAUL  LEAKE  141 

Summing  up  the  situation  as  it  exists  in  Detroit  to-day,  youi* 
committee  believe  that,  inasmuch  as  the  municipal  ownership 

of  street  railways  at  the  present  time  would : 
Detroit's  (i)  Largely  increase  the  city's  bonded  debt. 

Present  (2)  Increase  the  tax  rate. 

Situation  (3)   Diminish  the  amount  of  taxable  prop- 

erty. 

(4)  Increase  the  city's    liability  for  damage  claims. 

(5)  Benefit  neither  taxpayer,  employee  nor  patron. 

(6)  So  increase  the  tax  rate  as  to  react  to  the  detriment  of  the 
city's  industrial  expansion. 

(7)  Promote  increased  political  manipulation. 

We  believe :  That  for  Detroit  to  engage  in  street  railway  opera- 
tion would  be  to  enter  a  field  adapted  to  private  rather  than 
public  undertaking. 

To  enter  upon  an  experiment  certain  to  be  costly  and  not  cer- 
tain to  be  successful,  a  course  most  unwise,  from  a  business  stand- 
point, and  which,  in  the  opinion  of  your  committee,  should  not 
be  undertaken. 

Respectfully  submitted,  D.  M.  IRELAND, 

CHARLES  A.  DEAN, 
M.  J.  MURPHY, 
FRANK   KENNEDY, 
WILLIAM   PASHA. 
Sub-Committee  on  Municipal  Ownership. 

I  cannot  refrain  from  remarking,  before  closing  this  paper, 
that  political  exigencies  havs  kept  from  the  voters  the  most  logi- 
cal solution  of  the  street  railway  problem  ever  placed  before  the 
community.  In  closing,  I  will  state  that  the  corporation  now 
owning  and  operating  the  street  railways  of  the  city  of  Detroit 
throughout  the  entire  investigation  of  the  committee  of  fifty  and 
during  the  preparation  of  the  ordinance  acted  in  perfect  good 
faith.  It  employed  expert  engineers  to  secure  an  inventory  and 
appraisal  of  the  physical  value  of  the  system,  and  compiled  some- 
thing like  40,000  typewritten  pages  of  matter  which  it  furnished 
the  engineer  employed  by  the  committee  of  fifty,  and  at  all  times 
threw  its  books  and  records  open  to  the  investigation  of  the  com- 
mittee. I  can  state  privately  that  had  this  ordinance  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  people,  carried  and  adopted  by  the  common  council, 
the  street  railway  company  would  have  accepted  its  provisions 
once  and  for  all  and  removed  the  street  railway  problem  from 
politics. 


The   Minneapolis  Gas  Settlement. 

By  STILES  P.  JONES, 

Secretary  Voters'  League  of  Minneapolis. 

The  experience  of  three  short  years  has  made  the  city  of  Minne- 
apolis a  well-educated  community  along  franchise  lines. 

Previous  to  1907,  there  had  been  little  to  develop  a  franchise 
sense  in  the  community,  and  the  franchise  companies  dwelt  in  a 
condition  of  peace  and  serenity  regarding  the  future. 

Four  years  ago  it  would  have  been  possible  to  put  through  the 
city  council  without  any  notable  public  protest  franchise  grants 
affecting  the  local  public  utilities  that  would  have  very  inade- 
quately guarded  the  public  interests.  This  would  have  been  not 
because  the  city  council  was  more  corrupt  than  those  of  other 
cities  where  the  people  were  more  vigilant  in  this  regard,  or  that 
the  citizens  were  necessarily  more  ignorant.  It  was  simply  a 
case  of  an  undeveloped  sense  of  the  meaning  of  a  public-utility 
franchise  and  its  value  and  economic  significance  in  a  large  and 
growing  community. 

The  real  education  of  the  Minneapolis  public  in  a  franchise 
way  began  early  in  1907,  when  the  campaign  was  inaugurated 
for  a  franchise  agreement  between  the  city  of  Minneapolis  and 
the  General  Electric  Company.  This  company  is  one  of  the  con- 
cerns owned  by  Stone  &  Webster  of  Boston,  and  it  practically 
has  a  monopoly  in  furnishing  electric  energy  in  Minneapolis. 

The  General  Electric  campaign  covered  about  two  years,  and 
was  a  long  drawn  out  and  bitter  controversy.  The  company  bent 

every  energy  to  secure   a    favorable   franchise 
General  Elec-  ,  .    .  ,      „     ,     .. 

trie  Camuaiffn  agreement  to  replace  a  somewhat  legally  doubt- 
ful combination  of  odds  and  ends  of  grants 
made  at  various  times  to  different  companies  which  finally  merged 
into  the  General  Electric  Company,  while  the  mayor  and  part  of 
the  city  council,  backed  by  assistance  from  some  prominent  busi- 
ness sources,  insisted  upon  a  settlement  that  in  full  measure 
should  protect  the  public  interests. 

(142) 


STILES  P.  JONES 

It  was  a  notable  contest,  with  the  usual  invasion  of  high-priced 
experts  testifying  for  the  company,  and  the  public  representatives 
largely  groping  in  the  dark. 

The  campaign  began  with  the  repeal  by  the  city  council  of  all 
the  company's  job  lot  of  ordinances  and  culminated  in  the  adop- 
tion of  a  new  ordinance  which  fairly  well  conserved  the  public 
welfare. 

The  ordinance  as  adopted  failed  to  meet  the  standard  made  by 
Mayor  Haynes,  who  had  been  getting  educated  in  this  regard, 
along  with  others,  and  he  vetoed  it.  The  friends  of  the  ordinance 
were  never  able  to  muster  enough  votes  to  pass  it  over  the 
mayor's  veto,  and  matters  between  the  company  and  the  city  have 
been  in  statu  quo  since,  the  company  operating  presumably  with- 
out legal  authority  and  making  its  own  rates  and  classifications. 
The  company  has,  however,  voluntarily  put  in  effect  lower  rates 
than  those  prevailing  under  the  old  regime,  but  yet  above  those 
made  in  a  previous  ordinance  applying  to  rates  only,  adopted  by 
the  council  and  signed  by  the  mayor.  The  company  has  stead- 
fastly refused  to  accept  this  rate  ordinance,  while  thoroughly 
satisfied  with  the  provisions  of  the  general  ordinance  vetoed  by 
the  mayor. 

The  main  provisions  of  the  general  ordinance  are  as  follows : 

"  The  term  of  the  grant  is  thirty  years,  with  full  publicity  of 
records  and  no  discrimination  as  between  customers  in  the  same 
class;  an  initial  rate  to  the  city  of  $33.00  per 
Terms  of  the  horse  power,  and  $65.00  per  lamp  for  street 
Ordinance  lighting  for  a  total  of  3,650  hours ;  for  the  pri- 

vate consumers,  9  cents  net  for  residence  and 
commercial  lighting  for  the  first  52  hours,  with  a  secondary  rate 
of  6%  cents ;  for  manufacturing  purposes,  7^2  cents  for  the  first 
52  hours,  with  a  secondary  rate  of  25^  cents,  with  10  per  cent 
discount. 

"  The  city  was  given  the  right  to  regulate  rates  once  a  year,  but 
it  was  provided  that  such  rates  should  be  just  and  reasonable 
and  insure  a  fair  return  on  the  capital  investment.  The  company 
was  given  the  right  to  appeal  to  the  courts.  The  city  was 
granted  the  right  of  purchase  as  a  'going  concern,'  with  no 
value  for  franchise.  To  make  such  purchase  required  a  two- 
thirds  vote  of  the  council,  and  the  city  was  given  three  years  to 
pay  for  the  same.  It  was  expressly  stated  that  the  ordinance  was 
not  exclusive,  and  consolidation  was  prohibited." 


X44  THE  MINNEAPOLIS  GAS  SETTLEMENT 

The  supporters  of  the  ordinance  insisted  that  here  was  a  model 
arrangement  with  the  company;  that  in  view  of  the  right  of  pur- 
chase by  the  city  and  the  right  to  regulate  rates  each  year  there 
could  be  no  valid  objection  to  the  length  of  the  franchise  term; 
that  it  amounted  to  practically  an  indeterminate  franchise,  and 
that  every  right  properly  belonging  to  the  city  was  well  con- 
served. 

This  ordinance  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  14  to  12.  Mayor 
Haynes  came  back  promptly  with  a  veto.  He  objected  to  the 

length  of  the  term  of  the  grant  in  view  of  the 
The  Mavor's 
Vfctn  fact  that  this  was  not  an  original  franchise,  but 

what  practically  amounted  to  an  extension  of  a 
franchise  to  an  established  company  making  large  profits.  The 
mayor,  in  this  connection,  declared  as  a  principle  that  frequent 
renewals  of  franchises  were  necessary  to  compel  good  service  to 
the  public.  The  right  to  regulate  rates  by  the  city,  he  showed, 
did  not  necessarily  mean  lower  rates,  as  the  company  could 
secure  higher  rates  by  a  proper  showing  to  the  courts.  He  ob- 
jected as  well  to  the  ordinance  in  that  it  did  not  provide  for  a 
basic  valuation  of  the  plant  before  the  franchise  was  granted. 
Mayor  Haynes  also  insisted  that  provision  should  be  made  to 
safeguard  the  public  against  unfair  contracts  between  the  com- 
pany and  the  Taylor  Falls  Power  Company,  the  outside  concern 
generating  the  power  and  organized  as  a  distinct  corporation,  but 
owned  by  the  same  parties. 

Mayor  Haynes  made  this  General  Electric  issue  the  keynote  of 
his  campaign  for  re-election  in  1908,  and  won  out  by  a  small 
plurality,  as  a  Democrat,  in  a  community  normally  10,000  to 
12,000  Republican. 

While  the  General  Electric  franchise  remains  yet  unsettled,  the 
controversy  helped  materially  to  educate  the  community  in  the 
intricacies  of  the  franchise  problem  and  to  lay  a  foundation  for 
the  future. 

A  year  later,  in  June,  1909,  began  the  second  lesson  that  still 
further  perfected  the  franchise  education  of  the  community. 
This  was  an  even  more  notable  struggle  between  the  contending 
parties,  with  still  larger  stakes  at  issue.  Every  point  was  stren- 
uously contested,  and  every  inch  of  ground  gained  by  either  side 
was  secured  and  held  only  after  persistent  efforts. 


STILES  P.  JONES  145 

For  eight  months  the  contest  waged.  Its  conclusion  left  the 
mayor  broken  in  health,  while  the  company's  chief  counsel  sought 
warmer  climes  to  restore  his  shattered  nerves;  the  chairman  of 
the  special  committee  having  the  franchise  in  charge  retires  from 
public  life  this  year  through  sheer  weariness  with  the  exacting 
labors  of  his  job,  and  the  animosities  created  among  the  conflict- 
ing elements  of  the  citizens  over  the  merits  of  the  controversy 
will  not  soon  heal. 

The  actual  settlement  was  a  distinct  victory  for  the  city  and 
the  advanced  school  of  franchise  thought  in  the  community.  But 
it  fell  just  short  of  being  a  complete  triumph  by  the  final  action 
of  the  council  in  eliminating  the  right-of-purchase  clause  con- 
tained in  the  original  ordinance  and  twice  passed  by  the  council 
and  signed  by  the  mayor.  With  this  one  point  excepted,  the 
radical  franchise  element  secured  practically  all  their  demands, 
and  the  city  a  franchise  grant  that  all  in  all  may  be  considered 
a  well-nigh  model  document. 

To  understand  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  confronting  the 
city,  it  is  necessary  to  recite  a  few  facts  of  the 
S'tu  t'&8  original  gas  ordinance  of  1870.  This  gave  the 

company  a  grant  for  forty  years,  but  added : 

"  That  if,  at  the  expiration  of  forty  years,  the  said  city  shall 
desire  to  purchase  said  franchise  and  said  gas  works,  they  shall 
have  the  privilege  of  doing  so  upon  the  following  terms,  namely : 
That  said  city  may  purchase  the  franchise  pertaining  to  its  terri- 
tory, and  gas-pipes,  works,  fixtures  and  other  property  pertaining 
to  said  business  at  the  actual  value  of  the  same,  the  value  to  be 
fixed  by  three  arbitrators,  who  are  to  be  chosen  as  follows :  One 
by  said  city,  one  by  the  owners  of  the  franchise,  and  the  third 
by  the  arbitrators  thus  chosen ;  and  the  arbitrament,  or  award,  of 
value  made  by  these  three,  or  a  majority  of  them,  shall  be  the 
price  at  which  said  city  may  purchase  said  franchise  and  prop- 
erty. 

"  That  should  the  city  decline  to  purchase  at  the  valuation  as 
aforesaid,  then  said  rights,  franchise  and  privileges  are  to  con- 
tinue twenty  years  longer  to  the  said  persons,  their  heirs,  exec- 
utors, administrators  and  assigns,  with  the  conditions  hereinbe- 
fore in  this  ordinance  stated." 

The  contention  of  the  company  was  that  the  franchise  was,  in 


146  THE  MINNEAPOLIS  GAS  SETTLEMENT 

fact,  one  for  sixty  years,  and  that  should  the  city  fail  to  exercise 
its  right  of  purchase  in  1910,  at  the  end  of  the  forty-year  period, 
the  franchise  was  thereby  automatically  extended  for  twenty 
years  longer,  with  the  old  terms  and  conditions  continuing. 

With  this  view  of  the  situation,  the  company,  in  June,  1909,. 
formally  submitted  to  the  city  council  a  proposition  embodying 
certain  concessions  it  would  make  in  consideration  of  the  waiver 
by  the  city  of  its  right  to  purchase  the  property  and  franchise  of 
the  company.  The  city's  right  of  purchase  expired  Feb.  24,  1910. 

The  company  took  the  view  that  the  negotiations  it  desired  to 
begin  with  the  city  did  not  involve  the  granting  of  a  new  fran- 
chise at  all,  but  was  simply  a  bargain  proposition — the  company 
would  concede  certain  things  to  the  city  and  the  private  con- 
sumers in  return  for  a  waiver  of  the  right  of  purchase — and  it 
declared  that  it  did  not  deem  it  necessary  or  advisable  to  discuss 
the  respective  rights  of  the  company  and  the  city. 

There  is  no  question  that  the  company  and  the  city's  repre- 
sentatives at  this  time  took  about  the  same  view  of  the  situation. 
Neither  side  expected  that  it  was  facing  anything  more  than 
amicable  negotiations,  ending  with  an  early  and  easy  settlement 
involving  no  change  in  the  existing  conditions,  except  as  to 
price  concessions.  And  so  it  seemed  at  the  start. 

The  company's  proposition,  in  brief,  was  that  it  would  reduce 
the  price  of  gas  to  the  consumers  from  $1.00  to  90  cents,  and  to 

the  city  from  90  cents  to  80  cents.  As  a  fur- 
The  Company's  ,  .  "  .  ,  ,  , 

Pro-no  't'o  concession,   it   would   during  the   twenty- 

year  period  furnish  gas  free  of  charge  to  2,112 
new  street  lamps  already  installed  and  300  additional  lamps  each 
year.  In  return  for  these  concessions,  the  company  asked  for  a 
reduction  in  the  candle-power  of  the  gas  from  23  to  18  and  a 
standard  heating  value  of  600  B.  T.  U.,  the  standard  fixed  by 
the  Wisconsin  Commission,  and  about  40  B.  T.  U.  less  than  the 
company  had  been  voluntarily  furnishing. 

Subsequent  sessions  between  the  company  and  the  committee 
found  the  negotiations  getting  nowhere.  The  committee  had  no- 
expert  information  to  guide  its  course,  and  the  company,  with 
all  the  facts  available,  seemingly  had  the  situation  well  in  hand. 

At  this  juncture  Mayor  Haynes  brought  an  expert  on  the 


STILES  P.  JONES  147 


scene  in  the  person  of  Prof.  W.  D.  Marks,  of  New  York  City. 

He  sat  in  with  the  committee  for  several  weeks, 

'?"  and  from  the  day  of  his  appearance  the  aspect 

of  the  situation  changed  materially.    The  city's 

representatives  began  to  see  their  way  clearer,  and  the  hope  of 

settling  the  controversy  by  amicable  negotiations  along  the  lines 

originally  laid  out  was  gone.    Both  sides  now  settled  down  to  a 

long-drawn-out  struggle,  with  every  point  contested. 

A  little  later  in  the  negotiations,  Judge  F.  C.  Brooks  was 
brought  into  the  controversy  as  legal  expert  in  behalf  of  the  city. 
This  was  another  master  stroke  by  the  committee.  In  a  compre- 
hensive opinion  Judge  Brooks  defined  the  rights  of  the  city  and 
the  company  under  the  original  franchise.  This  opinion  cleared 
up  some  previously  obscure  legal  questions  involved  and,  up  to 
this  time,  interpreted  against  the  city,  knocked  out  some  props 
from  under  the  company's  claims,  and  put  life  and  hope  into  the 
city's  representatives.  The  city's  case  gained  steadily  from  that 
time  on. 

The  company  slowly  gave  ground,  but  yielded  nothing  except 
under  the  hardest  pressure,  and  with  each  concession  declared 
that  the  last  ditch  had  been  reached;  that  there  would  be  no 
further  concessions.  There  were  many  of  these  "  last  ditches  " 
before  the  controversy  was  finally  settled. 

Prof.  Marks,  an  advocate  of  the  London  sliding-scale  system 
of  regulating  the  price  of  gas  in  municipalities,  recommended  the 
application  of  this  system  to  the  Minneapolis  situation.  He  sug- 
gested a  basic  rate  of  90  cents,  with  a  7  per  cent  dividend.  Prof. 
Marks  contended  that  this  system  would  unite  the  interests  of 
the  company  and  the  municipality,  promote  harmony  all  along 
the  line,  and  perpetuate  cordial  relations  between  all  parties  con- 
cerned. The  company's  officials  entered  a  mild  objection  on  the 
spot,  and  later,  following  a  visit  to  the  office  of  the  United  Gas 
Improvement  Co.,  in  Philadelphia,  owner  of  one-half  of  the  stock 
of  the  company,  declared  unequivocally  against  this  innovation. 
The  wide  disparity  between  the  amount  of  stock  and  bonds  made 
it  a  practical  impossibility,  they  claimed.  The  capitalization  at 
this  time  was  about  $6,000,000,  of  which  only  $800,000  was 
capital  stock. 


148  THE  MINNEAPOLIS  GAS  SETTLEMENT 

Still  later,  near  the  close  of  the  controversy,  the  company 
changed  front  on  this  proposition  and  voluntarily  suggested  its 
willingness  to  consider  Prof.  Marks's  plan  as  a  means  of  ending 
the  controversy.  The  council  committee  promptly  entered  an 
emphatic  "no"  to  the  company's  suggestion.  In  fact,  the  com- 
mittee at  no  time  endorsed  on  its  part  the  sliding-scale  proposi- 
tion, but  if  the  company  had  shown  a  willing  spirit  at  the  time 
the  matter  was  first  suggested  it  is  possible  that  a  settlement 
might  have  been  made  on  that  basis. 

The  struggle  was  then  resumed  along  the  old  lines.  There 
were  many  weeks  of  laborious  hearings,  and  a  contractual  ordi- 
nance was  finally  perfected  containing  the  following  essential 
terms: 

"  Surrender  by  the  city  of  the  right  to  purchase  and  an  exten- 
sion of  the  franchise  for  twenty  years,  i.  e.,  until  1930. 

"  A  net  price  of  85  cents  for  gas  to  private  consumers  and  65 
cents  to  the  city. 

"  The  right  of  the  city  to  regulate  rates  at  the  expiration  of 
three  years,  and  at  five-year  periods  thereafter,  such  rates  and 
prices,  however,  to  be  reasonable  and  so  fixed 
The  Proposed  as  to  afford  a  fair  and  reasonable  return  upon 
Settlement  the  company's  capital  investment,  the  reason- 

ableness of  such  rates  being  always  subject  to 
review,  in  behalf  of  the  company,  by  the  courts ;  the  term  capital 
investment  defined  as  "  the  fair  and  reasonable  value  of  its  plant 
as  a  going  concern,"  no  value,  however,  to  be  placed  on  good  will 
or  franchise,  and  no  regard  to  be  had  to  the  company's  capital- 
ization. 

"  Prohibition  from  disposing  by  the  company  of  any  of  its 
securities  except  in  good  faith  and  at  a  fair  value,  and  for  actual 
cash  put  into  its  treasury  and  appropriated  to  the  making  of 
betterments  or  extensions  or  to  the  payment  of  its  pre-existing 
bona-fide  bonds  or  obligations. 

"  Complete  publicity  of  accounts,  including  an  annual  report  to 
the  city  containing  a  statement  of  all  assets  and  liabilities,  the 
gross  receipts  for  the  year,  expenditures,  improvements,  better- 
ments, extensions,  etc.,  also  net  earnings  and  dividends  paid,  and 
an  inventory  of  all  property,  real  and  personal. 

"  The  right  of  purchase  by  the  city  at  the  end  of  five-year 
periods,  the  purchase  price  to  be  determined  by  appraisal  and  the 
city  given  three  years  to  pay  the  price  agreed  upon. 

"  Regulation  of  the  hours  and  wages  of  the  company's  em- 


STILES  P.  JONES  149 

ployees.  This  provision  declared  that  no  manual  laborer  should 
be  required  to  work  more  hours  in  a  day  than  should  be  required 
by  law  upon  work  done  for  any  contract  involving  the  employ- 
ment of  laborers  made  by  or  on  behalf  of  the  state,  and  that  all 
laborers  should  receive  wages  that  are  just  and  reasonable,  and 
not  less  than  customarily  paid  for  labor  of  like  character  and 
requiring  like  skill  or  experience.  By  virtue  of  the  law,  this  is 
in  effect  an  eight-hour  day." 

The  inspiration  for  the  last  provision  came  from  one  of  the 
aldermen  of  the  ward  in  which  the  gas  works  are  located,  and 
was  an  expression  of  protest  against  the  long  hours  of  labor  im- 
posed upon  the  employees.  The  suggestion  to  incorporate  this 
clause  in  the  ordinance  met  at  first  with  ridicule  and  open  ex- 
pressions of  hostility,  both  on  the  part  of  the  company  and  mem- 
bers of  the  committee.  The  father  of  the  provision  kept  pound- 
ing away,  however,  and  eventually  the  committee  came  to  see 
that  it  might  be  a  dangerous  political  proposition  to  turn  the 
measure  down,  and  it  was  finally  incorporated  into  the  ordinance 
by  a  unanimous  vote. 

This  is  a  unique  provision  in  a  franchise  grant,  but  significant 
as  showing  the  growth  of  sentiment  towards  the  new  view  of 
the  responsibility  of  the  municipality  to  conserve  the  health  and 
the  social  conditions  of  the  people.  The  company  complied  with 
the  new  requirements  with  commendable  promptness. 

The  prices  made  to  consumers  and  the  city  was  the  company's 
own  proposition.  Every  other  essential  provision  was  forced  into 
the  ordinance  by  the  city  representatives  and  conceded  by  the 
company  only  after  a  spirited  protest. 

On  several  occasions  it  seemed  that  the  negotiations  were 
bound  to  come  to  a  disastrous  end.  Three  times  the  mayor, 
tired  and  disgusted  with  the  attitude  of  the  company,  urged  the 
council  to  abandon  negotiations  and  proceed  to  condemn  the 
property  for  municipal  ownership  and  operation  under  the  "  emi- 
nent domain  act."  Twice  the  company,  on  its  part,  declared 
that  it  could  go  no  further,  and  that  rather  than  yield  another 
inch  it  would  prefer  to  sell  the  property  to  the  city  under  the 
terms  named  in  the  ordinance  of  1870.  But  there  was  a  shrewd, 
and  patient  and  long-enduring  man  at  the  head  of  the  council 


150  THE  MINNEAPOLIS  GAS  SETTLEMENT 

committee,  and  he  held  his  committee  together  successfully  and 
kept  it  working  steadily  toward  the  goal  of  an  ultimate  settle- 
ment that  would  obviate  abandonment  of  negotiations  and  pur- 
chase by  the  city. 

The  company's  representatives,  finally  foreseeing  the  inevitable 
result,  laid  back  and  allowed  the  committee  to  do  its  worst,  re- 
serving the  privilege  of  refusing  to  accept  any  ordinance  that  the 
council  might  pass. 

The  first  ordinance  reported  out  of  the  committee  included  all 
the  above  essentials,  including  the  right  of  purchase  by  the  city 
each  five  years.  This  was  passed  by  a  unanimous  vote  of  the 
council,  and  promptly  signed  by  the  mayor. 

The  company  refused  to  accept  this  ordinance,  making  its 
chief  objections  the  right  of  purchase  and  the  labor  clause.  It 
explained  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  expend  a  large  amount 
of  money  in  rehabilitating  and  enlarging  the  plant,  and  contended 
that  inclusion  of  the  purchase  clause  would  make  this  task  im- 
possible on  any  terms  that  the  company  could  accept.  Rather  sell 
to  the  city  than  concede  this  point  was  its  ultimatum. 

The  council  committee  stood  pat,  and  apparently  here  was  a 
hopeless  deadlock. 

At  this  crisis  a  new  factor  entered  into  the  contest — a  com- 
mittee representing  some  of  the  banks  and  large  business  inter- 
ests,  who  were  much  worried  over  the  situation, 
the  Bankers  fearing  an  abandonment  of  the  negotiations  and 

the  dread  alternative  of  municipal  ownership. 
In  their  view  city  ownership  and  operation  of  the  plant  was  a 
consummation  to  be  avoided  at  all  hazards ;  and  they  constituted 
themselves  a  board  of  conciliation  with  the.  purpose  to  bring  the 
contending  parties  together. 

The  first  suggestion  of  the  business  men's  committee  to  effect 
a  settlement  was  for  the  council  to  drop  its  contention  for  the 
right  of  purchase.  The  committee  agreed  to  this  program,  but 
was  unable  to  make  good  on  the  floor  of  the  council,  the  mor» 
radical  element  succeeding  in  pushing  through  an  amendment 
providing  for  a  ten-year  purchase  clause,  instead  of  the  five. 
The  ordinance  as  thus  amended  was  passed  and,  for  a  second 
time,  signed  by  the  mayor. 


STILES  P.  JONES  15! 

The  company,  however,  still  held  out,  and  municipal  owner- 
ship now  seemed  imminent.  But  the  citizens'  committee,  more 
determined  than  ever  to  bring  about  a  settlement,  buckled  down 
to  its  task  again.  It  now  presented  the  suggestion  that  there  be 
no  purchase  clause  included  except  at  the  end  of  the  2O-year 
period.  The  company,  on  its  part,  consented  to  accept  the  ordi- 
nance in  this  shape,  with  the  labor  clause  included,  subject  to  its 
ability,  however,  to  make  the  necessary  financial  deal.  This 
ordinance  then  passed  the  council  with  seven  dissenting  votes, 
some  who  had  up  to  this  stage  stood  staunchly  for  a  five  or  ten 
year  purchase  clause  going  over  to  the  other  side. 

The  substitution  of  the  2O-year  right  of  purchase  for  the  10- 
year  failed  to  meet  the  approval  of  Mayor  Haynes.  The  mayor 
here  found  himself  in  a  real  predicament.  He  felt  that  he  could 
not  sign  the  ordinance;  nor  C9uld,  he  see  his  way  clear  to  veto 
it,  as  a  veto  might  have  defeated  the  ordinance  and  resulted  in 
endless  litigation  and  ultimate  public  disapproval  over  the  delay 
of  the  day  of  lower  gas  rates.  He,  on  his  part,  was  perfectly 
ready  for  municipal  ownership,  and  so  was  a  fair  minority  of 
the  council.  He  finally  worked  out  oJP  the  predicament  by  allow- 
ing the  ordinance  to  become  a  law  without  his  signature.  The 
company  shortly  made  advantageous  financial  arrangements  and 
accepted  the  ordinance,  and  it  went  into  effect  promptly,  thus 
finally  closing  a  settlement  that  left  the  property  in  private  hands. 

The  city  and  the  company  then  came  together  without  much 
difficulty  on  the  terms  of  a  second  ordinance  prescribing  regula- 
tions of  service.  This  ordinance  makes  specific  requirements  as 
to  candle-power,  heating  efficiency,  pressure  conditions,  extensions, 
etc.  The  power  to  make  reasonable  regulations  of  service  at 
any  time  is  admittedly  vested  in  the  council.  This  ordinance  has 
a  special  interest  to  the  expert  as  representing  perhaps  the  most 
up-to-date  ideas  as  to  proper  service  regulations.  In  the  hands 
of  a  vigilant  and  fearless  city  inspector  this  ordinance  is  com- 
petent to  safeguard  the  consumer's  interest  at  every  point. 

The  abandonment  by  the  council  of  the  right 
ine  minent  to  purchase  ^e  property  of  the  company  at 
Domain  Act  .  ,  .,.,,.,  ,  . 

stated  periods  within  the  life  of  the  grant  is  not 

fairly  explained  without  some  reference  to  the  eminent  domain 


152  THE  MINNEAPOLIS  GAS  SETTLEMENT 

law  of  1909.  This  had  an  important  bearing  on  this  point,  and 
was  the  reason  assigned  by  some  of  those  who  failed  to  stand  to 
their  guns  in  this  regard. 

The  eminent  domain  act  was  forced  upon  the  attention  of  the 
legislature  in  1909  by  Mayor  Haynes,  a  few  of  the  aldermen 
and  other  patriotic  citizens,  who  saw  the  necessity  for  the  city 
to  be  in  a  more  strategic  position  to  deal  with  the  gas  company 
upon  the  expiration  of  the  4O-year  term.  The  act,  in  brief,  gives 
the  city  of  Minneapolis  the  right  to  take  over  the  property  of  gas, 
electric  and  water  companies  for  city  operation,  under  certain 
imposed  conditions.  To  do  this  requires  a  two-thirds  vote  of 
the  council,  ratified  by  a  four-sevenths  vote  of  the  people  at  a 
special  election.  The  price  is  to  be  determined  by  appraisal.  The 
bonds  issued  for  this  purpose  are  not  counted  against  the  city's 
debt  limitation,  and  the  city  must  make  rates  sufficient  to  pay  in- 
terest and  maintain  and  operate  the  plant  at  a  high  standard  of 
efficiency. 

The  power  of  condemnation  contained  in  this  act  was  deemed 
by  many  a  sufficient  corrective  of  any  possible  bad  management 
or  other  lapses  on  the  part  of  the  company  without  the  addition 
of  the  contractual  right  of  purchase.  With  the  ever  present  im- 
manence of  the  repeal  or  emasculation  of  the  act  by  subsequent 
legislatures,  the  mayor  and  others  insisted  that  the  right  of  pur- 
chase as  a  part  of  the  contract  agreement  was  no  less  a  necessity 
on  account  of  the  existence  of  this  eminent  domain  act. 

One  of  the  undoubted  defects  of  both  the  electric  and  gas 
ordinances  is  the  lack  of  a  basic  valuation  of  the  properties  as 
furnishing  more  accurate  means  of  getting  at  a  fair  rate  to  con- 
sumers. The  point  was  discussed  a  good  deal  in  the  course  of 
both  negotiations,  but  neither  company  was  ready  to  concede  the 
point,  and  there  was  not  sufficient  support  in  the  city  council  to 
force  the  issue. 

It  is  the  general  opinion  that  the  General  Electric  Company 
will  shortly  again  be  an  applicant  for  a  franchise,  and  in  the  an- 
ticipation of  that  event  a  citizens'  committee  recently  presented  a 
report  and  recommendations  for  the  settlement  of  this  controversy. 
This  committee  meets  the  plant-valuation  issue  by  recommending 
that  the  price  in  case  of  purchase  be  the  actual  cost  of  reproduc- 


STILES  P.  JONES  153 

tion,  plus  10  per  cent,  instead  of  a  more  complicated  method  of 
reaching  the  same  result. 

The  committee  recommends  a  25-year  instead  of  a  3<>year 
grant,  with  privilege  of  purchase  at  the  end  of  5-year  periods; 
also  the  elimination  of  the  term  "  going  concern." 

The  apparent  discrimination  in  favor  of  the  gas  company  as 
against  the  General  Electric  in  the  exclusion  of  the  right  of  pur- 
chase is  in  part  explained  by  the  fact  that  the 
The  Differences  council  believed  itself  to  be  in  a  position  to 
between  the  Gas  impose  harder  conditions  upon  the  General  Elec- 
and  Electric  tric  than  Qn  the  company.  In  one  case  the 

Companies  °  \.    , 

company  was  asking  practically  for  a  new  fran- 
chise, while  the  other  company  had  certain  legal  rights  under  its 
original  grant  that  gave  it  both  a  moral  and  strategic  advantage. 
Another  factor  of  importance  in  this  connection  was  the  dispo- 
sition on  the  part  of  an  influential  element,  in  office  and  out,  to  do 
everything  possible  to  preclude  city  ownership  of  the  gas  utility. 

The  clause  in  the  gas  ordinance  giving  the  city  the  right  of 
purchase  at  the  end  of  twenty  years,  the  term  of  the  grant,  was  a 
makeshift  proposition  put  forward  by  the  business  men's  com- 
mittee as  a  final  effort  to  effect  a  compromise  between  the  con- 
tending forces.  There  is  doubt  in  the  minds  of  some,  however, 
regarding  its  value  or  advisability  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
city's  advantage.  In  fact,  Judge  Brooks,  the  city's  legal  adviser, 
early  in  the  negotiations  advised  the  committee  not  to  include  it. 
He  declared  it  was  to  the  city's  advantage  to  leave  the  rela- 
tions between  the  city  and  company  at  the  end  of  the  grant  en- 
tirely open.  The  company  at  the  conclusion  of  the  twenty-year 
period  would  be  without  any  legal  rights  in  the  city,  he  explained, 
and  the  city  council  in  a  position  to  deal  with  the  situation  wholly 
unhampered.  He  declared  there  was  potential  danger  in  attempt- 
ing to  define  the  status  of  the  company  and  the  city  at  the  same 
time. 

Judge  Brooks's  advice  was  either  forgotten  or  ignored  in  the 
haste  to  reach  a  settlement  that  would  head  off  municipal  owner- 
ship. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  municipal  ownership  men  never 
for  a  moment  expected  to  secure  city  ownership  of  the  property 
at  this  time,  nor  did  they  take  seriously  the  company's  refusals 


154 


THE  MINNEAPOLIS  GAS  SETTLEMENT 


to  accept  the  ordinance,  feeling  sure  that  the  company  would 
eventually  accept  all  the  terms  made  in  the  original  ordinance 
rather  than  turn  the  property  over  to  the  city. 

The  mayor  and  the  radical  franchise  element  in  the  community 

most  actively  interested  in  the  controversy  were  charged  with 

deliberately  attempting  to  provoke  a  situation 

umcipal  tjiat  woui(j  encj  negotiations  and  force  municipal 

ownership.  This  is  far  from  the  truth.  This  ele- 
ment, while  for  municipal  ownership  in  principle,  had  consistently 
held  the  out-and-out  municipal  men  in  leash  throughout  the  nego- 
tiations, holding  that  a  proper  settlement  without  city  ownership 
at  this  time  was  the  wiser  course.  But  they  insisted  strenuously 
that  the  way  be  left  open  for  ultimate  municipal  ownership 
through  the  right  of  purchase  by  the  city  at  fairly  frequent  in- 
tervals. 

An  interesting  legal  point  involved  in  the  controversy  was  the 
value  to  be  put  on  the  company's  franchise  at  the  end  of  the  forty- 
year  period  in  the  event  that  the  city  purchase  the  property 
under  the  old  agreement.  The  company's  attorneys  insisted  that 
the  franchise  had  a  large  value  and  that  the  city  would  have  to 
pay  for  it.  The  city  attorney  had  coincided  with  this  view. 
Judge  Brooks,  however,  took  quite  a  different  view  of  the  situa- 
tion. In  his  opinion,  the  franchise  expired  at  the  end  of  the  forty- 
year  period ;  therefore  there  was  no  franchise  to  purchase.  Mr. 
A.  E.  Clarke,  additional  counsel  employed  by  the  city  to  pass 
upon  the  city's  legal  rights,  declared  that  the  company  had  in 
effect  a  sixty-year  franchise  but  that  the  franchise  had  only  a 
nominal  value  at  the  end  of  the  forty  years. 

The  claim  put  forward  by  the  company  and  some  of  its  friends 
that  there  was  an  implied  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  city  to 
assist  the  company  in  financing  its  affairs  by  giving  a  HSeral 
franchise  was  another  interesting  point  brought  out  in  the  nego- 
tiations. This  also  was  used  as  an  argument  by  the  General  Elec- 
tric company  for  the  desired  long-term  franchise.  The  com- 
pany contended  that  the  public  would  inevitably  share  in  the 
benefits  through  the  better  rates  accompanying  the  lower  fixed 
charges. 

It  seems  only  proper  in  concluding  this  paper  to  say  a  word  as 


STILES  P.  JONES  155 

to  the  political  results.    As  stated  before,  Mayor  Haynes  was  re- 
elected  in  1908  almost  wholly  on  the  strength 

Re-election  of        of  his  yeto     f  the  General  Electric  ordinance. 

Mayor  Haynes  . 

He  was   renommated  this  year,  and  on  Nov. 

8th  was  re-elected  again  for  his  fourth  term,  but  by  a  plurality 
of  only  35  votes.  Practically  his  only  card  in  this  contest  was  his 
militant  record  on  the  franchise  questions,  as  his  administration 
in  some  other  respects  has  met  with  much  just  criticism.  The 
Socialist  candidate  came  within  800  votes  of  election,  and,  without 
doubt,  drew  largely  from  the  element  that  would  otherwise  have 
supported  Mayor  Haynes.  On  a  straight  issue  between  Haynes 
and  the  Republican  candidate  Haynes  should  have  won  out  by  a 
large  majority.  The  mayor's  Republican  opponent,  a  former 
member  of  the  council,  had  supported  the  other  side  of  the  Gen- 
eral Electric  contention,  and  was  believed  to  be  generally  friendly 
to  the  public  utility  companies. 

The  active  interest  taken  by  several  members  of  the  University, 
of  Minnesota  faculty  in  the  effort  to  secure  an  advantageous  bar- 
gain for  the  city  was  an  interesting  incident  of  the  controversy. 
Prominent  among  them  were  Prof.  John  H.  Gray,  head  of  the 
Economics  Department,  and  a  publicist  of  national  reputation, 
and  Prof.  Frank  M.  Anderson,  of  the  Department  of  History. 
Prof.  Gray  made  a  telling  talk  before  the  committee  in  which  he 
laid  special  stress  on  the  importance  of  thorough  publicity  of  the 
company's  accounts.  Prof.  Anderson,  an  active  political  reform 
worker  in  the  local  field,  followed  the  negotiations  closely  all 
through.  He  emphasized  especially  the  importance  of  the  right 
of  purchase  by  the  city  at  frequent  intervals. 


Kansas  City  Franchise  Fight. 

ByJ.  W.  S.  PETERS,  KANSAS  CITY,  MO., 
Civil  Service  Commissioner. 

Perhaps  in  no  American  city  does  the  citizen  have  more  to  da 
with  actual  management  of  municipal  government  than  in  Kansas 
City,  Missouri.  The  fundamental  law  of  the  city,  its  charter,  is 
submitted  by  referendum,  as  also  is  any  amendment  thereto. 
That  the  voter  does  not,  as  is  claimed  concerning  referenda, 
always  vote  blindly  in  the  affirmative,  is  proved  in  Kansas  City 
by  the  fact  that  a  charter  submitted  in  1905  was  wisely  rejected 
for  good  reasons,  while  in  1908  a  new  charter,  modified  to  meet 
these  objections,  was  adopted.  In  addition  to  this  education 
and  responsibility  put  upon  its  citizens  and  the  local  press  by 
Kansas  City's  right  to  frame  a  charter,  a  policy  of  management 
of  the  various  departments  of  city  government  by  citizen  boards 
of  three  citizens,  each  for  the  most  part  serving  without  compen- 
sation, has  been  carried  into  practically  all  of  the  divisions  of  the 
city's  work.  That  such  control  is  not  lacking  in  executive  ability, 
is  evidenced  by  the  beautiful  and  extensive  parks  and  boulevards, 
which  are  and  have  been  since  their  inception  under  the  super- 
vision of  unpaid  citizens  appointed  by  the  Mayor.  In  the  re- 
cently inaugurated  civil  service  department  under  the  manage- 
ment of  a  board  of  three  unpaid  citizens,  this  idea  of  giving  to 
the  citizen  business  man  a  chance  to  lend  a  hand  has  been  ex- 
tended. The  civil  service  board  at  each  examination  selects  a 
committee  of  three  citizens,  expressly  expert  in  the  matter  of  that 
examination,  serving  without  pay,  to  conduct  the  several  exami- 
nations for  the  various  classifications  of  the  city  departments. 

This  putting  upon  citizens  the  duty  and  privilege  of  taking 
actual  part  in  municipal  work  and  of  familiarizing  themselves 

_.A.  therewith  by  actual  experience,  has  fostered  in 

Citizens  at  .,  ..         .        r  ,  ,     ,       , 

tne  community  a  forceful  body  of  expert  citi- 


zens, educated  in,  and  of  necessity  familiar  with, 
the  principles  involved  in  solving  the  needs  and  meeting  the  ob- 
ligations of  a  city. 

(156) 


J.  W.  S.  PETERS  157 

It  thus  happened  that  when  the  Metropolitan  Street  Railway 
Company  on  December  i6th,  1909,  offered  to  the  citizens  at  a 
special  election,  an  ordinance  granting  a  forty-two-year  franchise 
extension,  that  did  not  adequately  provide  for  possible  municipal 
ownership  and  was  weak  in  its  forfeiture  clause,  the  voters  were 
able  to  understand  these  objections  when  raised,  and  after  dis- 
cussion and  argument  in  the  press  and  on  the  rostrum,  repu- 
diated the  ordinance  by  a  decisive  majority  of  7,097  in  a  total 
vote  of  30,377,  though  the  ordinance  had  been  passed  by  both 
upper  and  lower  houses  of  the  common  council,  and  approved 
by  the  mayor. 

At  the  time  this  ordinance  was  submitted,  all  of  the  street  rail- 
ways of  Kansas  City  were  being  operated  by  the  Metropolitan 
Street  Railway  Company  under  the  terms  of  what  was  called  a 
"  Peace  Agreement "  consummated  when  James  A.  Reed,  now 
candidate  for  Democratic  nomination  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  was  mayor.  Under  this  agreement,  ably 
A  Peace  fought  for  by  the  Reed  administration,  to  cor- 

rect some  glaring  defects  in  franchises  inad- 
visedly granted  during  the  previous  Jones  administration,  all  the 
then  existing  street  railway  systems,  namely,  the  Central  Elec- 
tric, the  Kansas  City  Elevated,  and  the  Metropolitan  Street 
Railway  companies,  were,  by  the  contract  itself,  in  the  year  1903, 
strongly  welded  into  one  operating  system,  for  the  whofe  city 
under  a  franchise  contract  expiring  in  1925.  Among  the  salient 
features  of  the  "  Peace  Agreement "  in  addition  to  the  fact  of 
consolidation  of  the  several  systems  then  existing  into  one,  the 
city  obtained  universal  transfers  for  a  straight  five-cent  fare,  re- 
tained the  right  to  enforce  extension  of  lines  to  a  limited  annual 
requirement,  and  was  empowered  to  compel  street  railway  com- 
panies to  pave  eighteen  inches  outside  their  tracks.  The  peace 
contract  also  provided  that  the  street  railway  company  should  pay 
the  city  eight  per  cent  of  its  gross  earnings,  with  proviso,  how- 
ever, that  all  state  and  county  taxes  should  be  first  paid  out  of 
that  percentage,  the  city  retaining  to  itself  the  residue  for  its 
general  fund.  The  universal  transfer  straight  five-cent  fare  ele- 
ment of  this  contract  has  had  much  to  do  with  making  Kansas 
City  a  city  of  homes,  having  ample  grounds  around  each,  and  has 


I58  KANSAS  CITY  FRANCHISE  FIGHT 

provided  choice  residential  real  estate  on  the  market  at  reasonable 
rates.  It  is  now  possible  to  ride  from  the  furthermost  western 
limits  of  Kansas  City,  Kansas,  to  the  southern  limits  of  Kansas 
City,  Missouri — over  seventeen  miles — for  five  cents.  The  re- 
quirement that  the  street  railway  should  pay  the  city  eight  per 
cent  of  its  gross  earnings  out  of  which  taxes  should  first  be  paid, 
had  this  effect:  Before  this  provision  was  agreed  upon,  the 
street  railway  company  continuously  busied  itself  with  lobbies 
and  otherwise,  in  keeping  down  its  tax  assessments ;  since  the 
eight  per  cent  stipulation,  the  representatives  of  the  city  have 
been  equally  persistent  with  the  State  Board  of  Equalization  in 
efforts  to  cut  down  assessments  so  as  to  make  as  small  inroads 
into  its  eight  per  cent  as  possible  on  the  part  of  the  state  and 
county.  This  eight  per  cent  nets  the  city  about  $150,000  an- 
nually, after  paying  city  and  state  taxes  on  present  valuations, 
but  is  much  less  than  the  city  should  receive  in  straight  taxa- 
tion were  the  street  railway  companies  taxed  as  other  properties, 
on  anything  like  a  proper  valuation  for  taxation. 

In  1907,  in  a  special  session  of  the  legislature  called  by  Gov- 
ernor Folk,  and  during  the  term  of  H.  M.  Beardsley,  as  Mayor, 

there  was  passed  an  enabling  act  giving  the  city 
Public  Utilities  the  right  to  regulate  rates  and  also  to  appoint  a 

public  utilities  commission.  A  legislative  act 
empowering  the  city  to  regulate  rates  was  deemed  necessary  by 
those  advocating  this  legislation,  because  it  had  been  held  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Missouri  in  the  case  of  State  ex  rel.  v.  Tele- 
phone Co.,  189  Mo.,  83,  that  the  power  to  fix  and  regulate  rates 
was  a  sovereign  governmental  power  which  the  state  might  ex- 
ercise either  directly,  or  delegate  to  its  municipalities,  but  had 
not  so  delegated,  and  that  no  municipality  had  the  legal  right  to 
exercise  such  power  unless  specifically  granted  to  it  by  the  state. 
The  authorities  are  agreed  Uhat  a  city  may  even  without  such  en- 
abling act  in  granting  a  franchise  to  a  street  railway  company  fix 
fares  to  be  charged  by  it,  binding  both  upon  the  city  and  street 
railway  company,  and  this  not  by  way  of  compulsory  regulation, 
but  as  a  condition  of  the  franchise  which  becomes  binding  as  a 
contract  upon  the  company  in  accepting  the  franchise.  This  ten- 
dency of  legislation  in  Missouri  toward  a  more  active  control  of 


J.  W.  S.  PETERS  159 

corporations  by  regulation  had  much  to  do  with  the  street  railway 
company's  desire  to  obtain  some  sort  of  definite  contract  rights 
limiting  the  city's  powers  of  regulation  and  control  before  later 
legislation  in  the  same  line  might  become  more  drastic — and  it 
can  be  said  that  from  the  time  of  the  passage  of  this  act,  the 
street  railway  company  began  actually  to  feel  its  way  toward  an 
extension  contract. 

As  a  lever  for  obtaining  an  extension  the  street  railway  com- 
pany has  always  had  in  mind  what  is  known  as  the  "  West 
Twelfth  Street  Traffic  Way "  problem.  Con- 
Twelfth  Street  necting  the  stock  yards  and  wholesale  district 
of  the  West  Bottoms  with  the  main  portion  of 
Kansas  City,  Missouri,  is  a  wooden  structure  dating  back  to  the 
inception  of  the  cable  railway  system  of  Kansas  City  which  was 
inaugurated  in  Kansas  City  for  the  first  time  in  street  railway 
history  by  Mr.  W.  J.  Smith  and  Mr.  Robert  Gillham,  his  engi- 
neer. This  structure  is  a  steep  viaduct  running  at  a  fifteen  per 
cent  incline  from  I2th  and  Mulberry  Streets  in  the  West  Bottoms 
to  the  top  of  the  bluff  in  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  nearly  half  a 
mile;  thence  the  car  line  continues  east  along  I2th  street,  piercing 
the  very  center  of  the  business  district  of  the  city.  The  street 
railway  company  finds  that  it  is  impracticable  on  account  of  the 
grade  to  use  any  other  motive  power  than  a  cable  on  this  viaduct. 
In  order  to  electrify  this  Twelfth  street  line  and  thus  harmonize 
it  with  the  rest  of  its  car  lines,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  build 
an  entirely  new  traffic  way.  In  the  earlier  days,  a  tunnel  was 
proposed  for  the  joint  use  of  the  city  and  the  street  railway. 
More  recently  several  viaduct  plans  have  been  contemplated. 

In  the  charter  of  1908  it  was  provided  that  franchise  grants  or 
extensions  for  more  than  thirty  years  should  be  submitted  to  a 
referendum  and  require  a  majority  vote  "  of  the  qualified  voters 
voting  at  an  election  held  for  that  purpose  "  for  its  adoption. 
Such  being  the  case,  it  seemed  eminently  advisable  for  the  com- 
pany to  tack  on  to  a  request  for  a  long  extension  some  conces- 
sions in  the  way  of  financial  help  to  the  city  and  taxpayers  in 
building  a  new  viaduct.  In  this  way  the  street  railway  would 
insure  votes  from  those  persons  in  the  West  Bottoms  and  job- 
bing districts  desiring  this  means  of  access,  and  also  from  th» 


160  KANSAS  CITY  FRANCHISE  FIGHT 

property  owners  who  saved  special  taxation  thereby.  Henry  M. 
Beardsley,  elected  Mayor  in  1906,  in  his  platform  expressly  op- 
posed any  such  idea  of  tacking  this  proposition  on  to  any  proposal 
for  extension,  and  exchanging  "  strings  of  ponies  for  strings  of 
beads  "  and  was  persistent  in  this  policy  during  his  mayoralty 
term.  He  also  showed  his  tendency  to  oppose  corporate  control 
by  his  fight  for  cheap  gas  and  telephone  rates,  and  regulatory 
provisions  therefor,  by  his  insistance  on  pole  and  wire  taxes  for 
telephones,  and  by  his  co-operation  in  obtaining  the  enabling  act 
of  1907,  giving  cities  general  authority  to  regulate  rates.  Dur- 
ing his  term  of  office  a  method  of  solution  of  the  Twelfth  Street 
Traffic  Way  problem  entirely  distinct  from  any  street  railway 
proposal  was  formulated  under  his  direction:  This  plan  pro- 
posed a  five  per  cent  grade  viaduct  60  feet  wide  and  about  a  half 
mile  long  from  Liberty  Street  to  the  bluff,  piercing  the  face  of 
the  bluff,  for  use  of  the  street  railway  company  and  light  traffic, 
with  another  level  running  at  a  2.7  per  cent  grade  piercing  the 
bluff  lower  down  for  heavy  traffic.  From  the  bluff  where  pierced, 
branching  roads  were  to  be  provided  nt>rth  and 

south  alons the  bluff  to  Sixth  street  and  Twenty- 

fourth  street  respectively,  and  a  cut  was  to  be 
made  in  the  bluff  along  I2th  street  to  Broadway.  This  involved 
an  i8-foot  cut  on  I2th  street  to  Broadway.  Under  this  plan  the 
city  generally  was  to  pay  a  large  part  of  the  expense,  and  the 
residue  to  be  assessed  against  property  owners  in  an  extensive 
benefit  district,  it  being  left  to  later  negotiations  to  determine 
how  much  of  the  cost  the  street  railway  company  should  pay. 
It  was  the  expectation  that  the  reasonable  amount  to  collect  from 
the  street  railway  company  would  be  40  per  cent  of  the  whole 
requisite  cost,  about  $1,000,000.  These  proceedings  went  up  to 
the  Supreme  Court,  which  recently  decided  adversely  to  the  city 
on  the  ground  that  money  should  first  have  been  actually  pro- 
vided for  the  change  of  grade  on  I2th  street  and  condemnation 
of  a  3O-foot  strip  of  land  in  the  West  Bottoms  from  Santa  Fe  to 
Liberty  streets. 

This  was  the  so-called  "  Beardsley  Plan  "  and  was  distinctive 
in  that  it  treated  the  problem  as  a  transaction  entirely  separate 
and  distinct  from  any  street  railway  extension. 


J.  W.  S.  PETERS  l6l 

Knowing  that  there  would  not  be  any  hope  of  a  satisfactory 
extension  of  its  franchises  while  Mayor  Beardsley  persisted  in 
his  adverse  policies,  the  street  railway  company's  forces  in  1908 
centered  their  influence  in  electing  as  mayor,  Mr.  T.  T.  Critten- 
den,  a  son  of  Ex-Governor  Crittenden,  and  a  Democrat.  One 
fact  of  his  campaign,  showing  conclusively  the  way  the  wind  was 
blowing,  was  the  support  of  Mr.  Crittenden  by  the  Kansas  City 
Journal,  a  Republican  paper,  but  always  friendly  to  the  street 
railway  and  other  corporation  interests. 

The  Democrats  were  elected  on  a  platform  expressly  enun- 
ciating the  practicability  of  3-cent  fares,  and  citing  with  approval 
the  fights  of  Johnson  in  Cleveland,  Thompson  of  Detroit  and 
Whitlock  of  Toledo,  and  opposing  any  grant  of  extensions  fixing 
rates  without  subjecting  them  to  provisions  of  the  enabling  act 
giving  power  to  change  rates  from  time  to  time. 

Only  a  few  months  after  the  newly-elected  administration  had 
gone  into  office,  Mayor  Crittenden  and  a  committee  consisting 
of  himself  and  representatives  of  the  upper  and  lower  houses 
of  the  council  and  of  the  Public  Utilities  Commission,  paid  a 
visit  to  Chicago  to  investigate  the  Chicago  or  partnership  plan, 
and  returned  enthusiastic  over  its  method  of  handling  street  rail- 
way matters. 

The  opening  gun  was  fired  by  Mayor  Crittenden  reading  a 
letter  advocating  the  Chicago  plan  at  a  meeting  of  a  special 
"  Twelfth  Street  Traffic  Committee "  consisting  of  representa- 
tives of  the  upper  and  lower  houses  and  certain  members  of  the 
utilities  commission.  This  committee  was  afterwards  in  session 
almost  continuously  from  about  the  first  of  June  to  the  first  of 
August,  holding  public  conferences  with  street  railway  officials, 
and  finally,  a  plan  was  agreed  upon  by  this  committee  and  repre- 
sentatives of  the  street  railway  company  to  be  presented  for  adop- 
tion by  the  council. 

Copies  of  this  partnership  plan  thus  formulated  were  scattered 

broadcast  over  the  city  by  the  street  railway  company  and  were 

to  be  had  in  every  car.    This  plan,  based  on  Chi- 

A  Partnership       cage's  partnership  idea,  provided  that  the  city 

should  have  50  per  cent  of  the  net  receipts  of 

the  street  railway  (which  Mayor  Dunne,  of  Chicago,  prophesied 


162  KANSAS  CITY  FRANCHISE  FIGHT 

before  the  City  Club  would  be  "  nit  receipts  ")  and  that  the  city 
should  have  representation  on  the  board  of  directors.  It  also 
provided  in  reference  to  the  Twelfth  Street  Traffic  Way  prob- 
lem that  the  company  should  pay  one-third  of  the  entire  cost  of 
the  traffic  way  and  one-third  of  all  damages  for  condemnations 
or  grading.  It  was  soon  learned  that  this  plan  would  meet  with 
opposition.  The  main  objections  thereto  were  that  it  fixed,  for 
municipal  purchase  and  ownership,  the  value  of  the  plant  as  even 
$33,000,000,  without  proper  investigation  of  its  physical  assets, 
and  was  weak  in  its  forfeiture  clauses.  There  were  also  decided 
objections  to  any  partnership  plan.  It  was  then  rumored,  so 
that  it  reached  the  street  railway  officers,  that  the  Republicans 
might  possibly,  for  political  reasons,  favor  a  plan  based  not  on  a 
partnership,  but  on  a  plan  reducing  fares,  which  would  give  them 
due  credit  therefor  before  the  people.  Almost  over  one  night 
after  an  interview  between  street  railway  officials  and  some  Re- 
publican leaders,  the  whole  partnership  plan  was  abandoned, 
and  an  ordinance  quickly  passed  both  houses  of  the  council, 
and  November  ist,  1909  was  approved  by  the  Mayor,  which  was 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  documents  of  recent  years.  It 
threw  adrift  entirely  the  partnership  basis  and  provided  for  an 
extension  of  all  the  street  railway  company's  franchises  until 
1951,  a  period  of  forty-two  years,  did  not  pro- 
A  Forty-two  yjdg  for  any  possible  municipal  ownership  until 

Years  Extension  i     ,    '  e       t_ 

1945,  had  a  proposition  for  the  company  s  pay- 
ing a  goodly  portion  of  the  expense  for  the  Twelfth  street  viaduct 
but  conditioned  on  the  people  voting  bonds  for  paying  two-thirds 
of  the  cost  of  the  viaduct  itself,  had  provisions  for  rates  of  fare 
— six  for  a  quarter  or  twenty-four  for  a  dollar — but  so  inter- 
woven in  verbiage  conditioned  on  the  bond  issue  that  scarcely 
two  persons  could  agree  what  it  actually  did  mean,  had  a  for- 
feiture clause  with  all  of  the  sting  taken  out  by  a  provision  that 
even  after  default  ascertained  in  court,  the  company  would  have 
three  months  to  perform,  did  away  with  the  eight  per  cent  the 
city  obtained  under  the  then  existing  "  Peace  Agreement ",  had 
innocent-looking  clauses  that  could  be  interpreted  to  mean  'that  it 
might  haul  freight  through  the  city  streets  and  furnish  power  for 
every  conceivable  use  in  the  city,  took  away  the  powers  of  refer- 


J.  W.  S.  PETERS  163 

endum  given  by  the  1908  charter  to  the  citizens  in  street  railway 
matters,  and  by  contract  vested  discretion  in  such  matters  until 
1951  in  ordinances.  In  a  word,  it  practically  relieved  the  citizen 
from  a  chance  to  vote  on  street  railway  matters  until  1951,  and 
by  contract  gave  to  the  council,  as  far  as  possible,  the  right  to 
pass  on  such  matters. 

The  date  for  the  vote  on  the  ordinance  was  set  for  December 
1 6,  1909,  only  six  weeks  after  its  sudden  appearance  in  the 
political .  sky. 

Under  the  registration  laws  existing  in  Kansas  City,  it  was  held 
that  for  this  election,  not  being  for  an  election  of  a  city  official 
or  a  bond  matter,  there  was  no  provision  for  supplemental  regis- 
tration, and  any  voter  who  had  moved  from  his  precinct  since  the 
last  registration  would  thereby  lose  his  right  to  vote.  The 
Kansas  City  Star  estimated  that  at  least  12,000  out  of  the  whole 
voting  population  of  about  57,000,  would  thus  be  excluded  from 
expressing  themselves  on  this  proposition.  The  point  was  also 
raised  that  to  fix  the  election  within  two  weeks  of  Christmas, 
when  business  men  were  all  busy  winding  up  their  year's  work 
and  the  people  busy  with  the  festivities,  was  snap  judgment. 

The  Kansas  City  Star  had  been  consistently  opposed  to  any 
extension  so  long  in  advance  of  the  sixteen  years  yet  to  run 
under  the  present  contract,  and  now  took  up  the  fight  in  earnest 
with  a  force  and  vitality  which  its  175,000  daily  circulation  as 
an  independent  newspaper,  gave  it.  The  Journal,  a  Republican 
newspaper,  and  the  Post,  a  Democratic  newspaper,  advocated 
the  franchise  extension. 

At  a  meeting  held  November  9,  1909,  the  City  Club,  an  in- 
fluential organization  holding  itself  out  as  a  forum  for  the  dis- 
cussion of  municipal  matters,  having  a  member- 
ship of  about  400  sturdy  young  men  of  intelli- 
Action  . J  • 

gence,  made  an  exception  of  its  rule  of  being 

only  a  forum  for  discussion,  and,  through  its  executive  committee, 
formulated  a  report  condemning  the  ordinance,  and  appointed  a 
committee  of  seven,  consisting  of  H.  M.  Beardsley,  Frank  P. 
Walsh,  Charles  Sumner,  J.  W.  S.  Peters,  W.  C.  Scarritt,  J.  D. 
Bowersock  and  J.  T.  Fitzpatrick,  to  organize  a  committee  of  one 
hundred  citizens  to  oppose  the  extension  in  every  way  possible. 


164  KANSAS  CITY  FRANCHISE  FIGHT 

This  Committee  of  100  organized  at  once,  with  headquarters  in 
the  Midland  Building,  and  entered  upon  a  strenuous  campaign. 
In  this  building  noon  meetings  were  held  daily,  and  speeches 
pointing  out  the  defects  of  the  ordinance  were  made  by  able  men 
of  the  community.  Subscriptions  were  solicited  and  received 
for  the  campaign.  Speakers  were  obtained  and  put  on  the  stand 
nightly  all  over  the  city,  and  literature  was  distributed.  In  this 
committee  of  100  were  thirty-five  lawyers,  eighteen  labor  union 
men,  ten  prominent  business  men,  seven  real-estate  men,  six 
physicians,  and  others  of  various  professions  and  occupations,  but 
all  substantial  citizens.  Prominent  among  them  were  J.  V.  C. 
Karnes,  twice  chairman  of  charter  commissions  and  an  old  citi- 
zen of  Kansas  City.  The  committee's  chairman  was  E.  C. 
Meservey,  former  city  counselor  under  Mayor  Beardsley,  now 
chairman  of  the  Civil  Service  Board;  treasurer,  William  Volker, 
a  wealthy  merchant  and  philanthropist,  at  present  chairman  of 
the  Board  of  Public  Welfare  and  active  in  all  benevolent  city 
work ;  and  secretary,  J.  W.  S.  Peters.  At  first  the  committee  had 
hard  sledding.  The  Metropolitan  Street  Railway  Company  is  a 
great  power  in  the  local  financial  world.  This  is  due  to  its  large 
deposits  with  banks,  to  its  large  floating  debt  carried  by  these 
local  institutions  and  to  having  several  of  the  presidents  of  the 
strongest  local  banks  on  its  directorate.  It  had  an  additional 
advantage  in  the  fact  that  the  Kansas  City  Railway  and  Light 
Company,  a  New  Jersey  corporation,  owned  and  controlled  not 
only  all  the  stock  of  all  the  street  railways  of  the  city,  but  also 
owned  and  controlled  the  electric  light  company  with  all  of  its 
ramifications  of  financial  power  and  influence.  It  was  supposed 
that  vested  interests  generally  on  account  of  large  Armour  hold- 
ings, were  favoring  the  franchise ;  and  business  men  having  notes 
in  the  banks,  preferred  that  their  opposition,  even  if  promised,  be 
kept  quiet.  Some  at  first  even  preferred  to  make  their  sub- 
scription to  the  fund  by  cash  rather  than  by  check.  The  Repub- 
lican City  Committee  early  in  the  fight  sustained  by  a  letter  of 
Governor  Hadley,  came  out  openly  in  opposition  to  the  franchise 
and  opened  up  headquarters  for  polling  purposes  in  co-operation 
with  the  committee  of  100,  which  had  charge  of  the  rest  of  the 
campaign.  Ex-Governor  Folk  sent  a  public  letter  in  opposition 


J.  W.  S.  PETERS  165 

to  the  franchise,  and  the  Democratic  City  Committee  refused  to 
commit  itself  either  way. 

One  of  the  most  spectacular  episodes  of  the  campaign  was  an 

oratorical  contest  arranged  before  the  Commercial  Club.     The 

Commercial  Club  refused  to  commit  itself  as 

S?1?:1^1?^.1  a  body  either  for  or  against  the  franchise  ex- 

Club  Debate  .„. 

tension,  but  expressed  itself  as  willing  to  hear 

both  sides  of  the  case  presented  by  persons  selected  by  the  com- 
mittee of  100  and  the  Metropolitan  Street  Railway  Company. 
The  Metropolitan  Street  Railway  Company  selected  Hon.  James 
A.  Reed,  one  of  the  most  vindictive  and  caustic  speakers  of  the 
West,  and  a  past  master  in  debate.  The  committee  of  100  se- 
lected ex-Mayor  H.  M.  Beardsley  and  ex-Circuit  Judge  E.  L. 
Scarritt  No  tournament  or  joust  with  lances  balanced  ever 
attracted  a  more  earnest  concourse.  The  ample  hall  of  the  Com- 
mercial Club  was  packed  past  standing  room,  hundreds  of  dis- 
appointed citizens  being  unable  to  find  room,  and  every  thrust  and 
parry  brought  pleasure  or  pain  as  it  was  favorable  or  otherwise 
to  the  side  championed  by  each  speaker — for  in  this  franchise 
campaign  there  were  no  neutrals.  It  was  a  campaign  in  which 
more  bitter  feeling  was  manifest  than  in  any  political  fight  pre- 
viously had  in  this  city. 

Judge  Scarritt's  witticisms  in  reference  to  placards  which  the 
street  railway  company  had  put  in  its  cars  to  the  effect  "  Vote 
for  the  franchise  and  4-cent  fares  "  brought  applause  that  any 
stage  actor  would  have  envied.  "  The  street  railway  company," 
said  he,  "  have  written  in  the  placards  that  if  we  vote  for  the 
franchise  we  will  get  4-cent  fares.  I  would  rather  it  were  so 
written  in  the  franchise,"  and  then  proceeded  to  argue  that  4-cent 
fare  was  not  so  written  in  the  franchise,  but  a  garbled  mass  of 
words  and  conditions  relating  to  fares,  absolutely  uncertain  as  to 
its  meaning.  Reed  made  an  able  speech  until  in  his  most 
caustic  tone  he  pointed  to  Beardsley  in  reference  to  a  franchise 
granted  in  the  Jones  administration  when  Beardsley  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  upper  house,  and  said :  "  Where  was  Mr.  Beardsley 
then,  who  is  now  speaking  before  you  to-night  in  this  franchise 
matter,  when  that  measure  was  up?  Like  a  lamb  before  his 
shearers  he  was  dumb !  "  Mr.  Beardsley  arose  in  his  seat  and  by 


l66  KANSAS  CITY  FRANCHISE  FIGHT 

the  assistance  of  the  crowd,  drew  Mr.  Reed's  attention.  "  Which 
way  did  I  vote  on  that  measure,  Mr.  Reed?"  "  I  don't  know," 
said  Reed,  "  but  I  know  you  did  not  say  anything."  "  I 
voted  '  No/  "  said  Beardsley — and  the  lance  of  Mr.  Reed  fell 
from  the  breastplate  of  Mr.  Beardsley,  shattered  into  splinters, 
taking  away  all  the  effectiveness  of  a  hundred  previous  success- 
ful thrusts. 

As  the  campaign  progressed,  it  was  evident  that  the  street 
railway  company  recognized  that  it  was  losing  ground.  Eighteen 
bankers  (and  it  was  rumored  that  the  street  railway  company 
had  borrowed  $1,000,000  from  local  banks  to  carry  floating  in- 
debtedness) came  out  in  a  letter  advocating  the  franchise  as  a 
business  necessity  for  the  company.  The  street  railway  company 
threatened  bankruptcy  if  it  should  not  obtain  the  extension  upon 
which  to  obtain  money  from  sale  of  bonds  necessary  to  meet  ob- 
ligations soon  coming  due  amounting  to  over  $10,000,000.  The 
company  put  up  a  deposit  of  $500,000  with  three  local  banks  as 
a  guarantee  that  they  would  live  up  to  their  fare  agreements,  as 
they  interpreted  them.  The  officers  and  directors  of  the  company 
came  out  in  a  letter  "interpreting"  mooted  clauses  of  the  fran- 
chise. Mr.  Reed  offered  to  give  $500  to  any  specified  charity  if 
his  interpretation  of  certain  parts  of  the  contract  was  not  cor- 
rect, and  the  mayor,  president  of  the  upper  house,  city  counselor 
and  counsel  for  the  public  utilities  commission  came  out  in  a  most 
remarkable  document,  published  in  the  daily  press  over  their 
own  signatures,  the  very  day  before  the  election,  and  addressed 
to  the  Kansas  City  Star,  stating  that  they  had  deposited  $10,000 
with  the  New  England  National  Bank  as  a  gift  to  the  Provident 
Association  if  they  were  wrong  in  asserting  that  if  the  franchise 
carried,  the  provision  for  the  sale  of  six  tickets  for  twenty-five 
cents  and  the  sale  of  twenty-five  tickets  for  a  dollar,  was  not  a 
joker  and  would  go  into  effect. 

In  order  to  protect  the  integrity  of  the  ballot  against  possible 
fraud,  extraordinary  precautions  were  taken  by  the  election  com- 
missioners.   A  poll  was  made  by  these  commis- 
Anti-Franchise        .  ,  .  .•• 

CamDai  sioners  of  every  precinct  by  their  representatives 

co-operating    with    policemen    selected    by    the 
police  commissioners  for  that  purpose,  to  collect  data  and  have  it 


J.  W.  S.  PETERS  167 

at  hand  for  use  of  election  judges  and  clerks  to  challenge  the 
votes  of  such  persons  as  had  moved  from  their  precincts  since 
the  last  election  and  were  therefore  not  entitled  to  a  vote.  Police- 
men were  also  instructed  by  the  police  commission  to  watch  out 
for  any  possible  sign  of  voters  being  bought.  No  money  was 
used  by  either  side  on  election  day  for  purchase  of  votes,  and  the 
election  was  a  fair  one  on  its  merits. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  go  into  the  details  of  the  specific 
objections  to  the  franchise.  It  was  as  antiquated  and  out  of  date 
as  a  mule  car  in  these  days  of  electric  motor  power,  and  is,  I  hope, 
the  last  of  its  kind  that  will  ever  be  presented  to  a  modern  city. 
The  following  were  some  of  the  salient  defects  as  stated  by  ex- 
Mayor  Beardsley: 

"  The  franchise  is  indefinite  and  uncertain,  runs  for  a  period 
beyond  reason,  fixes  no  limits  on  stocks  and  bonds,  does  not  pro- 
vide for  adequate  present  or  future  reduction  of  fares,  fails  to 
protect  universal  transfers,  contracts  away  public  ownership,  and 
contains  no  adequate  provision  for  extension  of  lines,  or  enforce- 
ment of  its  provisions." 

While  it  is  hardly  fair  to  many  others  to  single  out  some  of  the 
many  persons  and  institutions  that  did  work  in  this  franchise  cam- 
paign, I  cannot  forbear  mentioning  a  few  particularly : 

The  two  most  prominent  figures  in  the  forepart  of  the  fight 
in  favor  of  the  franchise,  in  addition  to  James  A.  Reed,  were 
Bernard  Corrigan,  the  street  railway  president,  a  brother  of 
Thomas  Corrigan,  who  was  owner  of  the  street  railways  of 
Kansas  City  in  the  horse-car  days.  Bernard  Corrigan  is  a  man 
of  large  means  and  is  a  political  power,  and  a  fighter,  with  little 
of  the  compromise  make-up  in  his  disposition.  The  other  was 
Mr.  John  A.  Lucas,  the  leading  counsel  of  the  Metropolitan,  a 
suave,  able  lawyer,  an  effective  advocate  whether  on  the  ros- 
trum, before  a  committee,  in  a  talk  before  a  church  society,  or 
before  a  jud^e  or  jury. 

The  strongest  force  in  opposition  to  the  franchise  was  the 
Kansas  City  Star,  which,  daily  during  the  franchise  negotiations 
liberally  devoted  its  valuable  space  opposing 
The  Opposition  the  extension,  in  its  news  columns  and  editor- 
ials, publishing  verbatim  reports  of  the  ne- 


168  KANSAS  CITY  FRANCHISE  FIGHT 

gotiations  before  the  Twelfth  Street  Traffic  Way  commission 
and  of  the  proceedings  in  the  houses  of  the  council.  It  printed, 
without  charge,  announcements  and  notices  of  the  work  of  the 
Committee  of  One  Hundred,  and  gave  public  approval  to  all  con- 
spicuous features  in  the  fight  for  a  "  Free  City  against  the  Fran- 
chise." Mr.  Dante  Barton  and  Mr.  H.  J.  Haskell  of  the  editorial 
staff  having  charge  of  such  matters  are,  and  for  a  long  time  have 
been,  enthusiastic  members  of  the  National  Municipal  League, 
and  the  influence  of  its  annual  publications  and  findings,  can  be 
recognized  in  the  columns  of  the  Star. 

Next  to  the  Star  as  an  influential  institution  in  this  fight  was 
the  City  Club,  which  threw  its  full  membership  into  the  fight 
enthusiastically  after  being  first  aroused  in  a  key-note  speech  by 
Frank  P.  Walsh,  a  prominent  lawyer,  an  able  orator  and  de- 
bater, who  devoted  substantially  his  whole  time  for  the  six  weeks 
to  work  on  the  rostrum  before  crowded  meetings  all  over  the  city. 
This  club  imported  speakers  almost  weekly  for  its  meetings 
during  the  campaign,  among  them  Mayor  Dunne  and  Raymond 
Robins  of  Chicago.  Judge  Scarritt  and  Hon.  O.  H.  Dean,  promi- 
nent Democrats,  permitted  their  speeches  to  be  printed  and  dis- 
tributed by  the  Committee  of  100  as  an  argument  that  the  fran- 
chise was  not  real  Democracy;  and  D.  J.  Haff,  who  has  fought 
for  public  parks  in  Kansas  City  from  their  inception,  and  whose 
logical  analysis,  first  used  effectively  at  a  tremendous  stock- 
yards meeting,  was  published  as  a  campaign  document,  was  a 
strong  factor. 

Certainly  no  summary  of  this  matter  would  be  complete  with- 
out mentioning  Charles  Sumner,  secretary  of  the  City  Club,  and 
an  active  member  of  organized  labor,  who,  as  assistant  secretary 
of  the  Committee  of  100,  had  practical  charge  of  all  the  details 
of  the  campaign.  He  was  on  duty  fourteen  hours  a  day  for  the 
full  period  of  six  weeks,  refusing  at  the  end  to  accept  compen- 
sation for  his  services,  though  the  Committee  of  100  had  agreed 
with  him  in  advance  to  pay  him  for  his  help.  When  men  not 
of  large  means  will  give  their  money  and  time  at  a  sacrifice,  for 
city  service,  that  city  is  indeed  far  from  graft  or  toleration  of 
municipal  robbery,  whether  in  money,  or  contracts,  or  franchise 
grabs. 


J.  W.  S.  PETERS  169 

Since  the  defeat  of  the  franchise,  Mr.  John  M.  Egan,  a  rail- 
road contractor  and  manager  of  international  reputation,  formerly 
president  of  the  Union  Depot  Terminal  Company  of  this  city 
during  its  negotiations  for  a  new  franchise,  has  been  elected 
president  of  the  Street  Railway  Company,  supplanting  Mr.  Cor- 
rigan,  and  seems  inclined  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  show  that 
the  street  railway  company  desires  to  give  good  service  and 
satisfaction  to  patrons,  and  to  get  out  of  active  politics.  Over 
600  men  are  now  at  work  daily  on  street  paving  for  the  company, 
many  new  cars  have  been  purchased  and  are  running,  and  more 
are  promised.  The  city  has  a  good  public  utilities  commission, 
consisting  of  three  members  appointed  by  the  mayor,  instead  of 
seven  as  under  the  Crittenden  regime.  With  Darius  A.  Brown, 
now  mayor,  who  was  one  of  the  active  anti-franchise  fighters  in 
the  franchise  campaign  while  a  member  of  the  lower  house,  the 
matter  of  Kansas  City's  street  railway  situation  seems  safe  for 
the  present. 

The  lesson  of  the  Kansas  City  franchise  fight  is :  Educate  the 
citizen  by  making  him  take  a  hand  in  municipal  matters  at  all 
times,  and  when  crises  come,  he  will  be  a  better  safeguard  for  his 
town  against  assault  than  the  stone  walls  of  ancient  days. 


Elements    of   A    Constructive     Franchise 

Policy. 

By  DELOS  F.  WILCOX,  Ph.  D.,  NEW  YORK  CITY. 

For  the  sake  of  simplicity  and  directness  I  shall  confine  myself 
in  this  discussion  to  street  railway  franchises.  The  principles 
suggested,  however,  will  be  applicable,  with  due  allowance  for 
modifying  conditions,  to  franchises  under  which  any  local  public 
utility  is  operated. 

So  far  as  the  discussion  of  past  and  present  franchise  policies 
is  concerned,  I  shall  confine  myself  for  the  most  part  to  the  ex- 
perience of  New  York  City,  for  the  double  reason  that  I  have  a 
more  intimate  knowledge  of  franchise  conditions  there  than  else- 
where, and  that  the  franchises  of  New  York  apply  to  public 
utility  services  of  greater  magnitude  than  are  found  in  any  other 
city  of  the  United  States. 

The  street  railway  franchise  policy  of  New  York  City  was 

inaugurated  about  sixty  years  ago  by  "  The  Forty  Thieves,"  who 

at  that  time  controlled  the   destinies  of   New 

e    orty  York  by  reason  of  membership  in  the  board  of 

aldermen  and  the  board  of  assistants.  In  the 
first  franchise,  granted  in  1851  to  the  Sixth  and  Eighth  Avenue 
Railroad  Companies,  these  gentlemen  by  mistake  started  right 
They  provided  that  the  city  should  have  the  right  to  cause  the 
companies'  rails  to  be  removed  from  the  streets  at  any  time,  and 
furthermore,  that  the  city  should  have  the  option  of  buying  the 
companies'  lines  at  any  time  upon  payment  of  the  cost  of  con- 
struction, plus  a  bonus  of  ten  per  cent.  The  city  fathers'  mis- 
take in  starting  right  was  soon  rectified,  and  the  example  set  by 
"  The  Forty  Thieves  "  in  these  original  franchises  was  never  fol- 
lowed by  them  or  by  their  innumerable  successors  in  the  common 
council  and  the  state  legislature  through  whose  liberality  the 
metropolis  of  the  American  continent  has  been  despoiled  of  the 
control  of  its  streets. 

(170) 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  171 

It  turned  out  that  at  the  time  these  original  franchises  were 
granted,  the  City  of  New  York  did  not  possess  lawful  authority 
to  grant  street  railway  franchises.  In  1854,  after  the  local  au- 
thorities had  attempted  to  make  grants  to  several  companies  for 
the  construction  of  lines  on  the  important  north  and  south  ave- 
nues of  the  city,  the  legislature  passed  a  general  act  confirming 
these  grants,  and  conferring  upon  cities  of  the  state  generally 
the  right  to  grant  street  railway  franchises  subject  to  the  consent 
of  the  majority  in  interest  of  the  abutting  property  owners.  Many 
years  later,  at  a  time  when  the  Metropolitan  Street  Railway  Com- 
pany was  gathering  together  all  the  competing  lines  of  old 
New  York  into  one  gigantic  monopoly,  the  Court  of  Appeals  was 
called  upon  to  determine  the  effect  of  the  Act  of  1854,  confirm- 
ing the  original  grant  to  the  Eighth  Avenue 
Railroad  Company.  The  court  held  substan- 
tially that  what  tne  Act  of  1854  did  was  to  confirm  the  privi- 
leges of  the  company  and  release  it  from  its  obligations.  In  this 
manner  the  judiciary  effectively  corrected  the  original  alder- 
manic  error  of  starting  right.  In  1860,  however,  a  new  act, 
applicable  to  New  York  City  alone,  was  passed  by  which  the 
legislature  arrogated  to  itself  the  exclusive  right  to  grant  street 
railway  franchises  in  the  streets  of  the  metropolis.  During  the 
next  fifteen  years  this  right  was  liberally  exercised  from  legis- 
lative headquarters  at  Albany. 

The  franchise  policy  under  which  the  principal  streets  of  New 
York  were  covered  by  local  or  legislative  grants,  or  both,  prior 
to  1875,  was  fundamentally  wrong  in  three  most  important  par- 
ticulars. 

In  the  first  place,  the  grants  were  unlimited,  which,  under 
the  decisions  of  the  New  York  courts,  means  perpetual;  that  is 
to  say,  the  privilege  granted  to  a  private  com- 
erpetaai  pany  to  construct  street  railway  fixtures  in  a 

public  street  without  a  specific  limitation  of  the 
period  during  which  those  fixtures  may  be  maintained  is  con- 
strued in  New  York  as  a  vested  right  that  cannot  be  taken  away 
either  by  local  or  by  legislative  action,  either  with  or  without 
compensation  for  the  physical  property.  While  such  a  franchise 
might  perhaps  be  condemned,  the  city  would  in  that  case  be  com- 


172  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

pelled  to  pay  not  only  for  the  physical  property,  but  also  the  full 
present  value  of  the  perpetual  right  to  occupy  the  street. 

In  the  second  place,  the  fatal  mistake  was  made  of  relying 
upon  competition  in  the  street  railway  business  as  practically  the 
only  means  of  securing  adequate  service  at  reasonable  rates.  The 
state  and  the  city  absolutely  failed  to  recognize  in  the  charters 
and  franchises  of  the  various  street  railway  companies  any  obli- 
gation resting  upon  any  of  these  companies  to  extend  their  lines 
beyond  the  routes  originally  selected  by  the  companies  them- 
selves. The  rule  was  laid  down,  although  by  no  means  always 
followed,  that  every  company  should  within  a  certain  time  con- 
struct the  entire  route  which  it  had  selected,  but  when  extensions 
or  new  routes  were  to  be  built,  it  was  left  for  the  existing  com- 
panies or  other  companies,  impelled  solely  by  the  desire  for 
profit,  to  apply  for  the  privilege  of  building  them. 

In  the  third  place,  no  public  control  whatever  was  exercised 
over  the  disposition  of  the  companies'  gross  earnings.  No  ade- 
quate provision  was  made  for  the  continual  upkeep  and  improve- 
ment of  the  lines,  and  no  provision  whatever  for  the  writing-off 
of  the  capital  or  any  part  of  it  out  of  earnings. 

The  results  were — perpetual  franchises,  a  multiplicity  of  com- 
panies, and  no  check  upon  overcapitalization. 

By  1875  the  people  of  New  York  had  learned  that  something 
was  wrong  with  this  franchise  policy,  but  instead  of  changing 
the  fundamental  principles  upon  which  the  policy  was  founded, 
they  began  to  apply  various  remedies  which  were  recommended 
by  the  political  doctors  from  time  to  time.  The  gold  cure,  lim- 
ited diet,  bleeding  and  gymnastic  exercises  in  a  hobble  skirt  have 
all  been  tried  with  indifferent  success.  To  begin  with,  a  consti- 
tutional amendment  was  adopted,  effective  January  i,  1875,  by 
which  the  legislature  was  forbidden  to  authorize  the  construction 
of  a  street  railway  without  the  consent  of  both  the  local  author- 
ities and  the  abutting  property  owners,  or  in  lieu  of  the  consent 
of  the  property  owners,  a  determination  by  commissioners  ap- 
pointed by  the  general  term  of  the  Supreme  Court  that  the  pro- 
posed railway  ought  to  be  constructed  and  operated.  This  pro- 
vision effectually  stopped  the  practice  of  legislative  grants  by 
special  acts.  It  also  stopped  the  construction  of  street  railways 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  173 

for  a  number  of  years.     Nine  years  later  the  legislature  finally 
brought  itself  to  acquiesce  in  the  new  conditions  resulting  from 
the  adoption  of  this  constitutional  amendment,  and  passed  a  gen- 
eral street  railroad  law  providing  for  the  incor- 

sral  btreet       poration  of  companies  and  prescribing  the  man- 
Railroad  Law  ° 

ner  in  which  the  requisite  consents  of  the  local 

authorities  and  of  the  property  owners  of  the  court  should  be 
obtained.  By  this  time  the  prosperity  of  the  companies  had  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  public,  and  there  was  incorporated  in 
the  new  law  a  provision  that  companies  thereafter  organized 
should  pay  to  the  city  three  per  cent  of  their  gross  earnings  dur- 
ing the  first  five  years  of  operation,  and  five  per  cent  thereafter. 
Existing  companies  were  authorized  to  extend  their  lines,  but 
were  required  to  pay  similar  percentages  on  the  earnings  of  the 
extensions.  Such  earnings  were  to  be  estimated,  however,  on 
the  basis  of  the  company's  earnings  per  mile  of  track  for  its 
entire  system,  old  and  new.  This  policy,  in  the  first  place,  es- 
tablished a  discrimination  between  the  old  and  the  new  com- 
panies. The  new  companies,  which  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
would  have  to  build  their  lines  in  outlying  and  less  profitable 
territory,  were  compelled  to  pay  a  considerable  tax  on  their  re- 
ceipts, while  the  old  companies  which  had  for  many  years  been 
fattening  on  the  profits  of  congested  traffic  in  the  most  important 
downtown  streets,  were  not  required  to  make  these  payments. 
This  general  policy  was  calculated  to  discourage  the  building  of 
new  lines  or  the  extension  of  old  ones  into  undeveloped  territory. 
The  basis  prescribed  for  the  calculation  of  the  earnings  of  ex- 
tensions was  such  as  to  put  a  premium  upon  the  construction 
of  extensions,  if  they  were  to  be  constructed  at  all,  by  new  com- 
panies organized  as  dummies  of  existing  ones. 

In  1886  the  famous  Cantor  Act  was  passed,  which  required 
the  sale  of  all  new  franchise  grants  in  New  York  City  at  public 
auction.  The  practical  effect  of  this  act  was  to  induce  rival  in- 
terests to  bid  against  each  other  until  a  proposed  franchise  would 
be  struck  off  at  a  prohibitive  rental,  with  the  result  that  the  line 
would  not  be  built  at  all,  or  at  least  not  until  after  several  years 
of  financial  floundering  and  a  final  readjustment  and  reduction 
of  the  percentage  payments  agreed  upon.  Two  of  the  cross- 


174  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

town  lines  were  at  different  times  bid  in  for  thirty  or  thirty- 
five  per  cent  of  the  gross  receipts,  but  when  they  were  struggling 
finally  to  get  into  operation  about  ten  years  later,  the  city, 
under  authority  of  a  special  act  of  the  legislature,  compromised 
with  the  companies  by  reducing  their  percentage  payments  in 
excess  of  the  minimum  required  under  the  railroad  law,  in  one 
case  to  one-half  of  one  per  cent,  and  in  another  case  to  one- 
fifth  of  one  per  cent.  In  still  another  case,  when  two  or  three 
rival  factions  in  the  political  and  traction  world  were  bidding 
against  each  other  for  an  important  system  of  routes  in  The 
Bronx,  the  bids  were  run  up  to  several  thousand  per  cent  of  the 
gross  receipts.  At  this  point  the  city  comptroller  was  conscience 
smitten,  being  in  doubt  as  to  his  right  to  strike  off  the  franchise 
at  such  an  exorbitant  price.  Accordingly,  after  some  litigation 
and  delay,  the  franchise  was  awarded  to  the  People's  Traction 
Company  at  a  rental  for  the  first  five  years  of  operation  of 
ninety-seven  per  cent  of  its  gross  receipts,  in  addition  to  the 
three  per  cent  required  under  the  railroad  law,  and  for  the 
period  commencing  at  the  end  of  the  first  five  years  of  opera- 
tion and  continuing  into  perpetuity,  of  ninety-five  per  cent  of 
its  gross  receipts,  in  addition  to  the  five  per  cent  required  under 
the  railroad  law.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  this  company's  lines 
have  never  been  built.  We  are  even  in  a  position  to  say  with 
approximate  certainty  that  this  franchise,  granted  some  fifteen 
years  ago,  is  now  dead.  The  kind  of  certainty  referred  to  is 
moral  rather  than  strictly  legal  certainty,  for  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  New  York  Railroad  Law  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  legal  certainty  until  the  Court  of  Appeals  has  finally  and  de- 
finitely spoken  upon  the  particular  point  in  question.  Even 
then,  doubt  may  arise  at  a  later  time  when  the  highest  court 
affirms  without  opinion  a  decision  of  the  lower  court  wholly  in* 
consistent  with  an  earlier  decision  of  the  higher  court  sup- 
ported by  a  well-reasoned  opinion. 

By  1897  public  opinion  in  New  York  had  become  sufficiently 
enlightened  to  put  into  the  charter  under  which  old  New  York, 
Brooklyn  and  various  outlying  municipalities  were  consolidated 
into  Greater  New  York,  certain  provisions  quite  inconsistent 
with  some  of  the  franchise  policies  theretofore  established.  A 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  175 

limit  was  placed  upon  the   duration  of   fran- 

Limitea  chises.      Original   grants   could   no   longer  be 

Franchises 

made   for   a  greater   period   than  twenty—five 

years,  with  a  provision  for  renewals,  not  to  exceed  twenty-five 
years  in  the  aggregate,  upon  a  revaluation  of  the  franchise.  The 
charter  also  provided  that  any  franchise  grant  might  contain 
a  provision  either  for  the  reversion  of  the  grantee's  property  to 
the  city  without  cost  at  the  expiration  of  the  franchise,  or  for 
the  purchase  of  the  property  at  a  fair  valuation  at  that  time. 
Although  the  charter  did  not  confer  upon  the  city  any  specific 
authority  to  acquire  and  operate  existing  street  railway  lines, 
it  did  provide  that  any  utility  acquired  by  reversion  or  purchase 
under  the  terms  of  a  franchise  thereafter  to  be  granted  might 
be  operated  by  the  city.  In  place  of  the  old  law  requiring  the 
sale  of  franchises  at  public  auction,  the  charter  required  that  the 
value  of  any  particular  franchise  and  the  conditions  upon  which 
it  was  to  be  granted  should  be  determined  by  the  Board  of  Es- 
timate and  Apportionment.  Other  important  franchise  pro- 
visions of  the  charter  related  to  procedure  in  making  grants,  and 
are  of  no  particular  interest  in  this  discussion. 

Two  years  later,  in  1899,  the  special  franchise  tax  law  passed, 

under  the  provisions  of  which  the  companies'  fixtures  in  the 

streets  and  its  intangible  rights  were  defined  as 

ranc  ise  reaj  estatej  to  foe  assesse(i  annually  by  a  state 

board  and  to  be  taxed  at  the  same  rate  as  other 
real  estate.  A  provision  was  inserted  in  this  law,  however,  au- 
thorizing the  companies  to  subtract  from  their  franchise  tax 
all  payments  made  to  the  city  on  account  of  any  other  form  of 
special  tax.  Under  these  provisions,  not  only  the  gross  re- 
ceipts tax  established  in  1884,  but  even  the  rentals  paid  by  the 
companies  for  using  the  big  bridges  over  the  East  River  are 
subtracted  from  the  special  franchise  tax.  The  obvious  purpose  of 
this  provision  was  to  equalize  conditions  among  all  the  companies, 
old  as  well  as  new.  The  special  franchise  tax  has  involved,  I  be- 
lieve, in  every  instance  heavier  payments  than  had  been  made 
by  any  of  the  companies  under  preceding  laws  and  franchises. 
The  city,  however,  has  refused  to  accept  this  equalization,  and 
in  recent  years  has  followed  the  policy  of  compelling  companies 


i;6  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

acquiring  new  street  railway  privileges  to  contract  away  their 
lawful  right  to  subtract  the  percentage  payments  and  other  com- 
pensation required,  from  their  special  franchise  tax. 

Under  these  various  schemes  for  fixing  the  relations  between 
the  street  railway  companies  and  the  public,  things  went  from 
bad  to  worse,  until  in  1907  the  public  service 
Mug  w  commissions  law  was  established,  upon  the 
theory  that  the  state  should  assume  definite  and  specific  super- 
vision of  the  rates  charged,  the  equipment  provided,  and  the  ser- 
vice rendered  by  the  various  companies  operating  within  its 
limits.  This  law  was  grafted  upon  the  jumble  of  already  exist- 
ing legislation,  a  large  portion  of  which  passed  under  the  pseu- 
donym of  the  "  railroad  law."  No  franchise  policies  were  re- 
versed by  the  establishment  of  the  public  service  commissions, 
and  no  franchise  laws  were  repealed.  The  people  of  the  state 
set  out  to  try  a  new  and  additional  remedy  by  means  of  which, 
without  regard  to  the  perpetuity  of  the  companies'  rights,  and 
in  spite  of  the  absence  of  specific  provisions  in  their  franchises, 
adequate  and  safe  service  at  reasonable  rates  was  to  be  wrung 
from  the  street  railway  companies  by  means  of  uniform  account- 
ing, publicity  and  intimate  supervision. 

In  spite  of  all  the  remedies  that  have  been  tried,  the  street  rail- 
way franchise  situation  in  New  York  City  remains  in  an  utterly 
chaotic  condition,  founded  upon  principles  that  are  fundament- 
ally faulty  and  that  foredoom  public  regulation  to  failure,  or  at 
least  to  partial  and  halting  success,  unless  they  can  be  supplanted 
by  radically  different  principles. 

The  policy  of  New  York  with  regard  to  rapid  transit  franchises 
offers  a  gleam  of  light  in  a  situation  that  would  otherwise  be 
enveloped  in  moonless  and  starless  night.  Away  back  in  1875 
the  congestion  of  population  in  lower  Manhattan  had  already  for 
a  score  of  years  impressed  upon  the  enlightened  people  of  the 
city  the  desperate  need  of  rapid  transit.  Out  of  this  need  grew 
the  recognition  that  rapid  transit  was  a  public  function  to  be 
initiated  by  the  city  itself,  primarily  for  the  relief  of  intolerable 
social  and  economic  conditions  rather  than  as  an  enterprise  out 
of  which  private  capital  could  extract  profits.  Accordingly, 
provision  was  made  for  the  appointment  of  commissioners  by 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  177 

the  mayor  to  determine  upon  the  necessity  of  the  construction  of 
rapid-transit  lines,  to  lay  out  the  routes  along  which  they  should 
be  constructed,  to  formulate  and  prescribe  the  plans  of  con- 
struction and  the  conditions  of  operation,  to  organize  companies 
for  the  purpose  of  constructing  and  operating  them,  and  to  turn 
over  to  these  companies  all  the  rights  and  privileges  necessary 
to  bring  about  the  fulfilment  of  the  purposes 

for  which  they  were  incorporated.  Under  this 
Legislation  ;•"•'«••  , 

early  legislation,  the  state  recognized  the  prin- 
ciple that  rapid  transit  at  least  is  a  public  function  to  be  under- 
taken on  the  initiative  of  the  public  authorities.  It  failed,  how- 
ever, to  limit  the  terms  of  the  franchises  granted,  to  recognize 
the  principle  of  monopoly  operation  or  to  preserve  the  control 
and  direction  of  rapid  transit  development  continually  in  public 
hands.  When  the  elevated  railroads  had  become  inadequate  to 
meet  the  demands  for  rapid  transit  on  Manhattan  Island,  the  city 
undertook  to  develop  subways.  A  new  rapid  transit  commission 
was  appointed,  with  authority  to  lay  out  routes  and  to  grant 
franchises  for  subway  construction  and  operation,  but  the  enor- 
mous expense  involved  in  subway  building  and  the  experimental 
character  of  the  project  interfered  to  prevent  private  capital 
from  volunteering  to  accept  and  exercise  the  privileges  offered 
as  it  had  done  in  the  case  of  the  elevated  roads.  Accordingly, 
under  the  stress  of  the  increasing  demand  for  better  transit  facili- 
ties, the  people  voted  for  the  municipal  construction  of  subways, 
and  finally,  after  long  delay,  and  in  spite  of  enormous  difficulties, 
a  subway  was  actually  constructed  and  put  in  operation.  The 
timidity  of  the  city,  however,  and  its  failure  to  recognize  frankly 
the  public  nature  of  the  function  to  be  performed,  impelled  it 
to  seek  the  assistance  of  private  enterprise  to  the  extent  of  the 
equipment  and  operation  of  the  new  transit  line.  It  might 
almost  be  said  that  both  in  the  case  of  the  elevated  roads  and  in 
the  case  of  the  subway,  the  city  gave  away  rights  and  privileges 
just  as  far  as  it  could  induce  anybody  to  take  them.  The  sub- 
way was  leased  in  advance  of  construction  for  private  operation 
for  a  period  of  fifty  years,  with  a  renewal  of  twenty-five  years 
upon  a  readjustment  of  the  rentals.  This  lease  was  given  with- 
out imposing  upon  the  operating  company  any  obligation  what- 


178  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

ever  to  construct  or  operate  any  extensions  of  the  original  line  or 
to  exchange  transfers  with  the  city  or  any  other  company  operat- 
ing extensions  or  connecting  lines,  but  provision  was  made  for  the 
amortization  of  a  portion  of  the  construction  cost  during  the 
period  of  the  lease. 

The  result  is  that  with  transit  needs  again  crowding  upon 
transit  facilities,  the  city  has  to  resort  to  the  doubtful  expedient 
of  providing  for  a  competing  subway,  or  of  making  such  exten- 
sions of  the  existing  subway  system  as  will  be  acceptable  from 
time  to  time  during  the  next  sixty  or  seventy  years  to  the  private 
company  now  in  control.  It  is  not  a  pleasant  dilemma  to  face. 

The  rapid  transit  plan  of  1875  recognized  the  necessity  of 
public  initiative  and  stopped  there.  The  rapid  transit  plan  of 
1894  recognized  the  necessity  not  only  of  public  initiative,  but  of 
construction  and  ownership  of  the  subways  by 
Act  of  1909  -  St0ppe(i  there  without  insisting  that 


the  city  should  maintain  continuous  control  of  the  development 
of  the  system  which  had  been  built  with  its  own  money.  At  last, 
by  the  bitter  experience  of  more  than  thirty  years,  the  people 
of  New  York  were  pushed  another  step  forward  in  1909.  In 
that  year  the  Rapid  Transit  Act  was  amended  so  as  to  make  pos- 
sible the  construction  of  subways  and  elevated  roads  under  inde- 
terminate franchises,  the  right  being  reserved  to  the  city  to  ter- 
minate such  grants  at  any  time  after  the  expiration  of  ten 
years  from  their  original  date,  upon  the  purchase  of  the  property. 
The  price  to  be  paid  for  the  property  in  case  of  the  termination 
of  the  grant  was  not  to  exceed  the  cost  of  construction  plus  a 
bonus  of  fifteen  per  cent.  If  the  termination  of  the  grant  was 
delayed,  the  purchase  price  was  to  decrease  gradually,  until  at 
the  end  of  a  definite  period  to  be  specified  in  the  franchises,  the 
railroads  would  revert  to  the  city  without  cost,  except  for  the 
equipment,  which  the  city  would  be  under  obligation  to  purchase. 
During  the  period  of  operation  by  a  private  company,  the  gross 
receipts  of  the  railroad  were  to  be  devoted,  first,  to  the  payment 
of  operating  expenses,  taxes  and  reserve  and  amortization 
charges  ;  second,  to  the  payment  of  an  annual  allowance  not  ex- 
ceeding six  per  cent  upon  the  capital  actually  invested  by  the 
company,  and  third,  the  net  profits  were  to  be  divided  equally 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  179 

between  the  city  and  the  company.  The  1909  amendments  also 
provided  for  the  construction  of  rapid  transit  lines  with  funds 
secured  by  the  levy  of  special  assessments  upon  property  specially 
benefited. 

Although  no  rapid-transit  grants  have  yet  been  made  under 
the  indeterminate  franchise,  and  no  lines  have  been  constructed 
on  the  assessment  plan,  there  has  at  last  been  established  in  the 
rapid  transit  law  a  recognition  of  several  of  the  most  important 
fundamental  principles  of  a  correct  franchise  policy.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  I  have  referred  to  rapid  transit  development  prelimi- 
nary to  the  elaboration  of  my  suggestions  for  a  constructive  street 
railway  franchise  policy. 

In  making  suggestions  for  a  model  street  railway  franchise, 
we  must  stipulate  at  the  beginning  that  existing  perpetual,  un- 
limited or  indeterminate  grants  and  grants  expiring  at  different 
times  should  be  terminated  either  by  purchase,  by  condemnation, 
by  forfeiture,  or  by  negotiation.  It  is  certainly  impossible  to  in- 
augurate a  correct  franchise  policy  without  being  in  a  position  to 
make  this  policy  apply  to  existing  lines. 

We  may  start  off,  therefore,  with  the  assumption  that  neither 
the  city  nor  the  state  should  show  any  mercy  to  forfeited  or  for- 
feitable  franchises  granted  years  ago  in  the  days  of  dense  dark- 
ness and  corruption. 

A  constructive  franchise  policy  must  recognize  the  following 
objects  to  be  attained: 

i.  Adequate  and  continuous  service. 

^Constructive          2.  The  protection  of  the  capital  invested  in 
the  business. 

3.  The  permanent  upkeep  of  the  property  at  the  highest  prac- 
ticable standard  of  efficiency. 

4.  Extensions  of  service  as  needed. 

5.  Reasonable  and  uniform  rates. 

6.  Unity  in  operation,  subject  to  public  supervision. 

7.  The  gradual  amortization  of  the  investment  out  of  earnings. 

8.  Continuous  and  effective  control  of  the  streets  by  the  city, 
through  the  right  at  any  time  or  at  reasonable  intervals  to  take 
over  the  lines  and  operate  them  or  transfer  them  to  other  agents. 

I  believe  that  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  a  model  fran- 


l8o  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

chise  would  be  the  terminable  nature  of  the  grant.    I  do  not  favor 
the  indeterminate  franchise  in  its  Massachusetts 
The  Indeterm-       fo        under  which  the  public  authorities  have 
mate  Franchise          .  '  ,     ,,     .      , .  .. 

a  right  to  revoke  the  locations  of  a  street  rail- 
way company  without  making  any  provisions  for  the  purchase  of 
the  property.  In  practice,  an  indeterminate  franchise  of  this 
nature  is  almost  necessarily  a  perpetual  franchise,  except  in 
the  case  of  particular  streets  where  new  traffic  conditions  require 
the  transfer  of  surface  lines  to  other  routes  or  to  subways.  The 
form  of  the  indeterminate  franchise  which  I  favor  would  permit 
the  city  at  any  time  after  a  certain  initial  period  or  at  frequent  in- 
tervals after  such  period  to  terminate  the  grant  upon  taking  over 
the  entire  property  of  the  company  at  a  price  to  be  determined 
by  the  cost  of  construction  less  the  amount  of  the  amortization 
fund  already  accumulated.  This  provision  for  purchase  should 
not,  however,  apply  to  the  revocation  of  locations  on  specific 
streets  not  integral  and  necessary  portions  of  the  company's 
route  where  such  revocations  are  made  necessary  by  changes  in 
traffic  conditions.  In  case  of  relocations,  however,  of  any  por- 
tion of  the  route,  the  net  cost  of  the  changes  should  be  added  to 
the  capital  account  and  become  a  part  of  the  purchase  price  un 
less  amortized  before  the  city  takes  over  the  property.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  indeterminate  franchise  as  here  outlined  is  threefold. 
In  the  first  place,  it  provides  for  continuous  public  control  of  the 
city's  street  railway  policy.  The  desirability  of  municipal 
ownership  and  operation  is  a  mooted  question,  but  it  can  hardly 
be  disputed  that  this  generation  ought  not  to  attempt  to  foreclose 
the  question  against  reconsideration  and  resettlement  by  genera- 
tions to  come.  The  indeterminate  franchise  leaves  the  city  in  full 
possession  of  its  powers,  so  that  its  policy  with  reference  to 
municipal  ownership  may  be  determined  from  time  to  time  as 
future  exigencies  require.  In  the  second  place,  the  indeterminate 
franchise  opens  a  way  for  the  unification  of  street  railway  systems 
where  competition  still  lingers.  Where  there  are  several  operat- 
ing companies  under  the  indeterminate  franchise  as  here  de- 
scribed, the  city  would  be  able  to  bring  about  the  consolidation 
of  all  lines  by  taking  them  over  for  a  new  company  to  operate, 
or  by  causing  the  transfer  to  one  of  the  existing  companies  of 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  181 

the  lines  of  all  the  other  companies.  The  advantages  of  unity 
of  operation  both  from  the  standpoint  of  the  public  and  from  the 
standpoint  of  those  responsible  for  rendering  street  railway  ser- 
vice are  too  well  recognized  to  require  discussion  here.  In  the 
third  place,  the  indeterminate  franchise  even  where  operation  is 
already  unified  and  where  the  city  does  not  desire  to  establish 
municipal  ownership,  would  permit  the  city  to  transfer  the  entire 
system  to  new  agents  whenever  the  company  already  in  control 
proves  unable  or  unwilling  to  adjust  itself  to  the  conditions  of 
intelligent  and  humble  service.  I  may  add  that  I  think  it  would 
be  fair  to  provide  that  in  case  the  city  terminates  the  franchise 
for  the  purpose  of  transferring  the  property  to  another  private 
company,  a  bonus  of  ten  or  fifteen  per  cent  should  be  paid  in  ad- 
dition to  the  price  for  which  the  city  can  take  over  the  property 
for  municipal  operation.  This  principle  has  been  recognized  in 
the  Chicago  settlement  franchises. 

In  my  judgment  the  intimate  control  of  the  street  railway  ser- 
vice demanded  by  modern  conditions  can  be  made  most  effective 
by  the  inclusion  in  the  franchise  contract  of  cer- 
isposition  ol  tajn  Definite  requirements  in  regard  to  the  dis- 
position of  revenues.  Particularly  if  the  pur- 
pose of  such  intimate  control  is  to  compel  adequate  service  at 
reasonable  rates,  the  maintenance  of  the  property  at  the  highest 
practicable  standard  of  operating  efficiency,  and  the  gradual  writ- 
ing off  of  the  capital  invested,  it  appears  absolutely  necessary  to 
stipulate  the  general  rules  which  shall  govern  the  company  in  the 
use  of  its  gross  earnings. 

I  would  therefore  stipulate  that  out  of  street  railway  revenues 
there  shall  first  be  paid  whatever  may  be  necessary  to  meet 
operating  expenses  in  the  broadest  sense  of  that  term.  I  would 
include  in  operating  expenses  such  taxes  as  may  be  levied  against 
the  company  or  its  property  under  the  laws  of  the  state.  I 
would  include  specific  provision  for  the  insurance  of  the  car 
barns,  power  houses  and  rolling  stock  against  destruction  by  fire. 
I  would  include  specific  provision  for  the  maintenance  of  an 
accident  fund,  out  of  which  shall  be  paid  the  claims  of  tort  credi- 
tors as  well  as  the  necessary  legal  expenses  of  the  company  in 
settling  or  defending  damage  suits.  To  meet  this  particular  class 


182  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

of  expenses  requires  from  three  or  four  to  eleven  per  cent  of  the 
gross  earnings  of  the  various  surface  street  railway  systems  of 
New  York  City.  Under  present  conditions  of  street  railway 
operation  not  less  than  eight  per  cent  of  gross  receipts  should  be 
set  aside  for  the  accident  fund,  at  least  until  experience  in  the 
case  of  a  particular  railway  proved  this  allowance  to  be  unneces- 
sarily large.  Inasmuch  as  the  cost  of  accidents  is  a  legitimate 
charge  against  operating  expenses  during  the  year  in  which  the 
accidents  occur,  and  inasmuch  as  the  companies  are,  on  the  aver- 
age, perhaps  two  years  behind  in  the  settlement  of  personal-injury 
claims,  I  think  it  is  desirable  that  there  should  be  set  aside  from 
earnings  a  sufficient  amount  to  keep  the  balance  in  the  accident 
fund  approximately  equal  to  the  estimated  liabilities  of  the  com- 
pany on  account  of  accidents  that  have  already  occurred,  but  for 
which  settlement  has  not  yet  been  made. 

"  Operating  expenses,"  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the  term,  in- 
cludes the  expenditure  for  maintenance  and  repairs  of  a  sufficient 
amount  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  property  represented  by 
the  capital  invested.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that  an  operating 
street  railway  system  cannot  be  maintained  at  one  hundred  per 
cent  of  its  reproduction  value.  Rails  that  have  been  in  constant 
use  for  ten  years  may  still  be  as  good  for  immediate  service  as 
they  were  when  new,  and  cannot  be  discarded,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  their  life  is  half  gone.  It  is  estimated  that  the  highest  prac- 
ticable standard  of  maintenance  would  keep  a  street  railway 
property  up  to  from  seventy  to  eighty  per  cent  of  its  reproduction 
value.  I  would,  therefore,  stipulate  in  the  franchise  contract  that 
the  plant  should  be  maintained  at  a  definite  standard,  say  seventy- 
five  per  cent  of  its  value  when  new.  In  order  to  compel  the 
operating  company  to  maintain  this  standard,  I  would  provide  for 
a  general  maintenance  and  depreciation  fund.  Approximately 
twenty  per  cent  of  the  gross  revenues  of  the  railway  should  be  put 
into  this  fund  from  year  to  year,  and  such  portions  of  the  fund  as 
cannot  profitably  be  expended  on  current  maintenance  and  re- 
newals, should  be  permitted  to  accumulate  for  future  use.  This 
fund  should  be  sufficient  to  provide  for  depreciation  of  every 
kind,  including  obsolescence,  inadequacy,  age  and  deferred  main- 
tenance, excepting  only  the  depreciation  allowed  from  the  one 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  183 

hundred  per  cent  standard  of  a  new  plant  to  the  seventy-five  per 
cent  standard  of  an  old  plant  maintained  at  its  maximum  effi- 
ciency. This  last  item  of  depreciation  is  sometimes  called  normal 
wear.  It  represents  the  necessary  shrinkage  of  the  property  pro- 
vided at  the  start  by  the  original  investment.  This  shrinkage  is 
something  that  cannot  and  need  not  ever  be  restored.  It  should 
be  taken  care  of  not  by  a  depreciation  fund,  but  by  the  early 
amortization  of  a  portion  of  the  capital.  While  it  seems  desirable 
to  insert  in  the  franchise  contract  specific  percentages  of  gross 
revenues  to  be  set  aside  for  the  various  funds,  provision  should 
be  made  for  the  readjustment  of  these  percentages  from  time 
to  time  if  such  readjustment  seems  necessary  in  the  light  of  ex- 
perience. 

After  providing  for  the  payment  of  operating  expenses  of 
every  kind  and  nature  as  hereinbefore  described,  the  franchise 
should  authorize  the  company  as  the  next  draft  upon  revenues, 
to  withdraw  a  sum  sufficient  to  pay  a  reasonable  minimum  re- 
turn or,  say,  five  or  six  per  cent  upon  the  amount  of  the  capital 
actually  invested.  The  amount  of  the  investment,  so  far  as  the 
franchise  is  concerned,  should  not  be  determined  by  the  aggregate 
par  value  of  the  stocks  and  bonds  of  the  company  outstanding 
at  any  particular  time.  The  regulation  of  nominal  capitalization 
may  well  be  left  to  the  state  authorities.  The  local  franchise 
should  make  definite  provision,  however,  for  determining  from 
time  to  time  the  capital  value  to  be  carried  on  the  company's 
books  as  the  basis  for  the  semi-guaranteed  returns  upon  invest- 
ment, and  as  a  basis  for  the  purchase  price  of  the  property  if  the 
city  should  at  any  time  determine  to  take  it  over.  Suffice  it  to 
say  at  this  point  that  the  capital  upon  which  the  company  is  al- 
lowed a  fixed  annual  return  should  represent  the  cost  of  con- 
struction, including  the  element  of  preliminary  and  organization 
expenses  and  all  other  elements  legitimately  entering  into  such 
cost  in  its  most  comprehensive  sense. 

After  the  earnings  of  the  road  have  paid  a  fixed  minimum 

upon  capital  invested,  the  next  item  to  be  provided  for  is  the 

amortization  of  the  capital  itself.     In  the  first 

place,  immediate  provision  should  be  made,  if 

possible,   for  the   amortization  of  twenty-five  per  cent  of  the 


184  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

capital,  representing  that  portion  of  the  property  which  will  be 
worn  out  in  approximately  ten  years  after  the  commencement 
of  operation,  never  to  be  restored.  Theoretically,  this  portion 
of  the  capital  should  be  amortized  within  the  first  ten  years  of 
operation,  but  inasmuch  as  in  the  case  of  an  entirely  new  road 
the  earnings  of  the  property  during  the  first  few  years  may  be 
comparatively  scant,  it  will  not  be  possible  in  all  cases  to  follow 
this  rigid  rule.  Regular  payments  to  the  amortization  funds 
should  be  made  in  the  shape  of  a  certain  percentage  upon  the 
capital  invested  rather  than  as  a  percentage  of  gross  receipts.  It 
would  require  the  payment  of  approximately  two  per  cent  a  year, 
with  the  fund  accumulating  at  the  rate  of  four  per  cent  per  an- 
num, to  provide  for  the  retirement  of  twenty-five  per  cent  of  the 
capital  at  the  end  of  ten  years.  While  it  may  not  be  possible  in 
some  cases  to  set  aside  this  full  amount  in  the  early  years  of 
operation,  there  is  no  reason  why  this  amortization  charge  should 
not  be  made  before  the  investors  are  permitted  to  earn  anything 
more  than  the  fixed  minimum  rate  of  profits.  After  the  accu- 
mulations in  the  amortization  fund  have  become  equal  to  twenty- 
five  per  cent  of  the  original  investment,  provision  should  be  made 
for  the  permanent  writing-off  of  that  portion  of  the  company's 
capital  account,  and  thereafter  the  allowance  for  interest  on  in- 
vestment should  be  based  upon  the  capital  as  so  reduced.  What 
further  provision  shall  be  made  for  amortization  after  the  capital 
has  been  brought  down  to  correspond  with  the  permanent  status 
of  the  property,  will  depend  upon  the  controlling  theory  as  to  the 
permanent  capitalization  of  utility  plants.  To  my  mind,  it  is  of 
as  much  importance  that  a  street  railway  system  under  private 
operation  should  be  paid  for  as  that  a  waterworks  plant  under 
municipal  operation  should  be  paid  for.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
desideratum  in  the  case  of  all  public  utilities,  whether  muni- 
cipally or  privately  owned,  that  provision  should  be  made  for 
the  amortization  of  the  entire  capital  out  of  earnings  within  a 
period  of  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  years.  The  increasing  burden 
of  municipal  debt,  even  though  city  bonds  are  retired  when  due, 
practically  prohibits  the  acquisition  by  the  city  of  public  utilities 
whose  capital  account  has  been  steadily  increasing  from  the  day 
they  were  first  constructed.  The  legitimate  burdens  of  the  future 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  185 

in  a  growing  city  are  always  greater  than  the  burdens  of  the 
present.  Every  new  utility  should  pay  for  itself  within  a  gen- 
eration or  two,  so  as  to  prevent  the  heaping-up  of  burdens  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  citizens  of  the  future.  When  an  energetic  young 
man  goes  into  debt  to  buy  a  farm,  he  is  not  satisfied  to  pay  interest 
indefinitely  on  the  amount  of  his  mortgage.  He  considers  it 
a  matter  of  plain  business  sense  and  patriotic  duty  to  pay  off  the 
mortgage  so  that  he  and  his  children  after  him  will  actually  own 
the  farm.  In  like  manner,  the  city  that  is  guided  by  common 
sense  and  regard  for  its  future  will  see  to  it  that  the  public 
streets  and  all  the  fixtures  in  them  are  paid  for  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible and  relieved  of  the  enormous  burden  of  debt  that  is  origi- 
nally laid  upon  them,  by  the  issuance  of  municipal  bonds  and 
public-utility  securities. 

The  amortization  fund  provided  for  in  street  railway  fran- 
chises should  be  put  into  the  hands  of  trustees,  with  authority 
to  invest  in  the  stocks  and  bonds  of  the  company  wherever  that 
is  possible,  and  otherwise  in  approved  outside  securities  bearing 
interest  or  paying  dividends  at  not  less  than  a  specified  per- 
centage. 

After  providing  for  operating  expenses,  interest  on  investment 
and  amortization  charges,  the  franchise  should  provide  for  the 
accumulation  of  a  contingent  reserve  fund  for  the  purpose  of 
taking  care  of  any  deficits  which  may  occur  in  lean  years  in 
respect  to  any  of  the  obligations  already  provided  for.  Into  this 
reserve  fund  should  be  paid  perhaps  one  per  cent  of  gross  reve- 
nues, until  the  accumulations  of  the  fund  reach  a  maximum  of, 
say,  five  per  cent  on  the  amount  of  capital  invested  in  the  prop- 
erty. 

Any  balance  of  gross  receipts  remaining  in  the  treasury  of 
the  company  at  the  end  of  any  fiscal  year,  after  operating  ex- 
penses, return  on  capital  and  amortization  and  contingent  reserve 
charges  have  been  paid,  should  be  treated  as  net  profits,  and 
should  be  divided  in  some  equitable  proportion  between  the  com- 
pany, the  city  and  the  employees  of  the  road.  I  would  provide, 
however,  that  the  city's  share  in  the  net  profits,  whatever  that 
share  may  be,  should  he  turned  into  the  amortization  fund,  in 
addition  to  the  regular  payments  to  that  fund,  so  as  to  hasten 


186  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  FRANCHISE  POLICY 

the  time  when  the  capital  can  be  written  off  and  the  street  rail- 
ways can  be  operated  either  as  a  municipal  or  as  a  private  enter- 
prise without  the  burden  of  fixed  charges.  Careful  students 
of  public  utility  problems  are  pretty  well  agreed  that  franchise 
utilities  should  not  be  operated  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  into 
the  city  treasury  a  revenue  for  the  relief  of  the  general  tax- 
payers. 

As  a  tentative  basis  for  the  division  of  net  profits,  I  would  sug- 
gest that  fifty  per  cent  be  assigned  to  the  city  to  be  used  as  I  have 
already    indicated:    twenty-five    per    cent    be 

T\"      '     '  £ 

turned  over  to  the  company  as  an  additional  re- 
Net  Profits  .  /. 

turn  upon  investment,  and  twenty-five  per  cent 

be  turned  into  an  employees'  benefit  fund.  I  would  provide  for 
the  distribution  of  this  fund  by  trustees  according  to  plans  de- 
vised from  time  to  time  to  encourage  and  reward  efficiency, 
economy  and  care  in  the  operation  of  the  road.  At  the  present 
time,  without  taking  into  account  the  grave  dangers  and  the  enor- 
mous losses  attendant  upon  street  railway  strikes,  we  find  all 
too  many  cases  where  the  employees,  falling  victims  to  petty 
temptation  or  attempting  to  imitate  on  a  small  scale  the  pecula- 
tions of  the  man  higher  up  in  the  street  railway  business,  "knock 
down  "  fares  or  neglect  to  collect  them  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
cause  a  serious  direct  loss  to  the  company  and  an  indirect  loss  to 
the  public,  which  must  depend  upon  the  earning  power  of  the 
road  for  the  maintenance  of  adequate  service.  It  is  certainly 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  city  in  the  granting  of  a  street 
railway  franchise  to  a  private  company,  that  all  possible  provi- 
sion shall  be  made  to  insure  the  loyalty  and  efficiency  of  the  em- 
ployees. The  distribution  to  the  employees  of  a  share  of  the  net 
profits  of  the  business  according  to  some  wise  plan,  based  on  the 
recognition  of  special  merit,  would,  I  am  sure,  redound  to  the 
common  benefit  of  the  public  and  the  investor. 

No  street  railway  franchise  contract  is  adequate  unless  it  re- 
serves to  the  city  the  right  to  require  from  time  to  time  the  con- 
struction of  extensions  as  needed.    The  proper 
development  of  the  local  transit  system  is  so 
important  a  factor  in  the  social,  economic  and  political  welfare 
of  a  city,  that  the  right  to  initiate  and  control  this  development 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  187 

in  accordance  with  the  demands  of  public  policy  should  never  be 
surrendered  by  the  municipal  authorities.  The  arbitrary  right 
to  compel  extensions  wherever  desired  might  be  abused  by  an 
ignorant  or  reckless  city  government.  It  is  probably  necessary, 
therefore,  that  provision  should  be  made  for  an  appeal  as  to 
the  necessity  and  reasonableness  of  a  proposed  extension  from  the 
order  of  the  local  authorities  to  a  state  commission  or  to  the 
courts. 

The  procedure  in  cases  where  extensions  are  ordered  should 
be  very  carefully  worked  out,  so  as  to  prevent  impossible  re- 
quirements on  the  one  hand,  and  unreasonable  delay  and  litiga- 
tion on  the  other.  In  order  to  relieve  the  situation  where  exten- 
sions are  needed  which  a  company  could  not  in  justice  be  required 
to  build  at  its  own  expense,  the  city  should  reserve  the  right  to 
require  the  company  to  operate  extensions  constructed  by  the  city 
on  the  assessment  plan,  or  by  the  property  owners  specially  inter- 
ested in  securing  the  extensions. 

In  order  to  assist  the  company  in  making  betterments  and 
building  extensions,  the  franchise  should  permit  the  temporary 
use  for  these  purposes  of  the  cash  accumulated  in  the  accident, 
depreciation,  reserve  and  amortization  funds,  provision  being 
made  for  proper  bookkeeping  and  for  the  replenishment  of  these 
funds  whenever  necessary  by  the  issuance  of  new  stocks  and 
bonds.  It  is  obvious  that  if  the  books  are  kept  properly,  no  harm 
can  result  from  such  use  of  cash  accumulations,  and  considerable 
advantage  will  be  gained  by  the  avoidance  of  delay  and  broker- 
age charges  incident  to  the  retirement  of  old  securities  and  the 
issuance  of  new  ones  in  place  of  them. 

In  a  street  railway  franchise  drafted  in  accordance  with  the 
principles  here  proposed,  I  would  provide  for  flexible  rather 
than  arbitrary  rates.  It  is  highly  desirable  that 
every  urban  community  constituting  a  single 
unit  of  street  railway  operation,  should  have  uniform  rates  of 
fare,  with  universal  transfers,  subject  to  reasonable  regulation. 
The  particular  rates  to  be  charged,  however,  should  be  deter- 
mined by  the  necessities  of  the  case.  There  is  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  unless  possibly  in  the  very  largest  urban  territories,  a 
higher  rate  than  five  cents  for  adults,  with  half  fare  for  child- 


i88 

dren  between  the  ages  of  six  and  twelve  years,  would  be  required. 
We  should  not  flinch,  however,  from  the  fixing  of  a  rate  that  will 
meet  the  requirements  of  a  constructive  street  railway  policy  as 
here  outlined.  It  might  be  desirable  to  incorporate  in  the  fran- 
chise a  sliding  scale  of  rates  to  be  readjusted  automatically,  in 
a  manner  similar  to  that  set  forth  in  the  settlement  ordinance 
that  is  now  being  tried  out  in  Cleveland. 

Continuity  of  operation  is  so  fundamental  a  requisite  in  street 

railway  service,  that  every  necessary  means  should  be  taken  to 

insure  it.    On  this  account  the  relations  between 

the  company  and  its  employees  whenever  they 

are  such  as  to  threaten  interruption  or  disintegration  of  service, 

become  a  matter  of  paramount  interest  to  the  city.     I  would 

therefore  stipulate  in  the  granting  of  any  street  railway  franchise 

that  the  company  shall  bind  itself  to  submit  any  questions  of 

dispute  arising  between  it  and  its  employees  to  arbitration  when 

requested  to  do  so  by  the  city. 

There  are  two  methods  of  determining  the  price  at  which  a 
public  utility  may  be  taken  over  by  the  city  or  its  licensee.  Ac- 
cording to  one  method,  the  property  is  appraised  at  the  time  of 
purchase.  According  to  the  other  method,  the  value  of  the  prop- 
erty is  agreed  upon  in  the  franchise  itself  or  at  the  time  of  con- 
struction. The  uncertainties  attendant  upon  appraisal  at  some 
indefinite  time  in  the  future  are  so  great  that  I  believe  the  city's 
interests  will  in  general  be  better  conserved  if  the  purchase  price 
is  based  upon  the  cost  of  construction  less  the  amount  of  capital 
amortized,  than  by  any  other  plan. 

It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  when  a  street  railway  franchise 
is  granted,  a  definite  valuation  should  be  agreed  upon  for  the 
existing  plant,  or  in  the  case  of  a  new  system, 
careful  provision  should  be  made  for  the  deter- 
price  mination  of  the  cost  of  construction  at  the 

time  the  railway  is  built.  The  approval  of 
the  city  should  be  required  for  all  construction  contracts,  and 
the  proper  city  department  should  have  supervision  both  of 
plans  of  construction,  materials  used,  and  the  actual  performance 
of  the  work.  No  leeway  should  be  given  for  padding  the  con- 
struction account.  Every  extension  or  betterment  should  be 


DELOS  F.  WILCOX  189 

treated  as  original  construction,  and  the  actual  cost,  audited  and 
approved  by  the  city  authorities,  should  be  added  to  capital  ac- 
count, provision  being  made  for  the  payment  of  interest  on  ad- 
ditional investment  and  for  amortization  charges,  the  same  as  in 
the  case  of  original  construction.  If  the  franchise  is  a  renewal 
grant,  and  a  valuation  can  be  agreed  upon  that  takes  into  ac- 
count the  necessary  diminution  of  value  through  normal  wear, 
it  will  not  be  necessary  to  make  provision  for  the  amortization 
of  that  portion  of  the  original  investment  represented  by  the  part 
of  the  property  that  has  disappeared,  never  to  return.  In  most 
cases,  however,  under  existing  franchises  the  companies  have 
made  no  provision  whatever  for  the  amortization  of  this  or  any 
other  portion  of  their  capital  account. 

I  am  convinced  that  in  order  to  get  a  scientific  street  railway 
franchise  policy  actually  established,  a  city  may  well  afford,  if 
necessary,  to  accept  a  valuation  of  an  existing  plant,  properly 
maintained,  that  would  include  this  element  of  capital  represent- 
ing property  that  has  disappeared.  Under  such  circumstances, 
the  same  provison  would  have  to  be  made  for  amortization  as  if 
the  plant  were  new. 

In  closing  this  paper,  I  desire  to  quote  a  brief  passage  from 
an  article  by  Mr.  Charles  V.  Weston,  President  of  the  South  Side 
Elevated  Railway  Company  of  Chicago,  published  in  the  Elec- 
tric Railway  Journal  of  October  14,  1910.  I  have  been  particu- 
uarly  impressed  with  the  remarks  I  am  about  to  quote,  for  the 
reason  that  they  seem  to  indicate  a  recognition  on  the  part  of  a 
practical  railroad  man  of  the  necessity  for  the  application  of  at 
least  one  of  the  fundamental  principles  which  I  have  outlined. 
Mr.  Weston  says: 

"  Referring  specifically  to  the  matter  of  speculation,  if  the 
street  railways  are  to  be  recognized  and  tolerated  as  legitimate 
business  enterprises,  in  which  the  owners  and  the  people  have  a 
mutual  and  equally  important  interest,  these  enterprises  must  be 
permanently  removed  from  the  field  of  stock  manipulation, 
which  has  for  its  sole  purpose  the  drawing  out  of  the  people's 
money  in  payment  for  that  which  does  not  represent  intrinsic 
value." 


The  Grafter  at  Work  in  American   Cities. 

By  HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND,  NEW  YORK, 
Of  the  Editorial  Staff  of  "The  Outlook." 

A  distinguished  traveler  recently  returned  from  making  the 
"  grand  tour  "  through  the  countries  of  Europe.  The  high  official 
position  which  he  had  formerly  held,  combined  with  the  still 
more  powerful  factors  of  his  own  personality  and  achievements, 
made  him  the  sought-for  guest  of  the  most  influential  and  the 
most  intelligent  in  every  country  through  which  he  passed.  On 
his  return  to  America  he  said:  Everywhere  I  went  in  Europe 
I  was  impressed  with  two  contrasting  views  of  our  country  which 
were  widely  held.  The  first  was  admiration  of  the  United  States 
as  the  land  of  freedom  and  equality  and  opportunity,  the  land 
where  every  man  has  a  chance  to  show  what  is  in  him  and  to  de- 
velop to  the  limit  of  his  capabilities.  The  other  was  distrust  of 
the  future  of  the  United  States  because  it  is  the  land  of  graft 

This  European  view  of  the  two  sides  of  our  national  shield  is 
essentially  true.  We  have  achieved  the  highest  development  of 
democracy  and  popular  rule  that  has  been  achieved  by  any  great 
nation  in  the  world's  history.  But  unless  we  shall  succeed  in 
effacing  from  our  national  life  the  stains  of  graft  and  corruption, 
we  may  well  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  the  harsh  question, 
Can  our  boasted  democracy  endure?  No  more  serious  problem 
confronts  us ;  none  which  we  have  greater  need  to  solve. 

The  flattering  invitation  of  your  committee  to  address  you 
suggested  the  preparation  of  a  "  strong  paper  on  the  grafter  at 
work  in  American  cities."  But  I  conceive  that  it  will  be  more  in 
accord  with  the  purposes  of  the  National  Municipal  League  if 
the  strength  is  not  that  which  is  stirred  up  by  the  muck-rake  and 
which  makes  an  assault,  as  it  were,  upon  the  mental  nostrils.  The 
strength  should  consist,  it  seems  to  me,  in  a  frank  facing  of  the 
facts  and  an  honest  attempt  to  deduce  from  the  conditions  which 
confront  us  some  of  their  underlying  causes. 

(190) 


HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND  191 

Graft  has  been  declared  by  that  veteran  "  practical  "  politician, 
George  Washington  Plunkitt,  of  Tammany  Hall, 

Definition  of  jn  a  pronouncement  from  his  rostrum  on  the 
boot-black  stand  in  the  New  York  County  Court 

House,  as  being  of  two  kinds,  honest  graft  and  dishonest  graft. 

"  There's  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  the  two.  Yes, 
many  of  our  men  have  grown  rich  in  politics.  I  have  myself. 
I've  made  a  big  fortune  out  of  the  game,  and  I'm  gettin'  richer 
every  day,  but  I've  not  gone  in  for  dishonest  graft — blackmailin' 
gamblers,  saloon  keepers,  disorderly  people,  etc. — and  neither 
has  any  of  the  men  who  have  made  big  fortunes  in  politics. 
There's  an  honest  graft,  and  I'm  an  example  of  how  it  works. 
.  .  .  Just  let  me  explain  myself.  My  party's  in  power  in  the 
city,  and  it's  goin'  to  undertake  a  lot  of  public  improvements. 
Well,  I'm  tipped-off,  say,  that  they're  going  to  lay  out  a  new 
park  at  a  certain  place. 

"  I  see  my  opportunity  and  take  it.  I  go  to  that  place  and  buy 
up  all  the  land  I  can  in  the  neighborhood.  Then  the  board  of  this 
or  that  makes  its  plan  public,  and  there's  a  rush  to  get  my  land, 
which  nobody  cared  particularly  for  before. 

"  Ain't  it  perfectly  honest  to  charge  a  good  price  and  make 
a  profit  on  my  investment  and  foresight?  Of  course  it  is.  Well, 
that's  honest  graft." 

Plunkitt  of  Tammany  Hall's  distinction  between  varieties  of 
graft  is  interesting,  because  it  is  a  distinction  characteristic  of  an 
age  that  is  passing,  not  only  in  the  political  world  but  in  the 
business  world.  Dishonest  graft  is  that  kind  of  exploitation  of 
the  community,  indulgence  in  which  may  get  you  into  jail;  by 
honest  graft  you  may  get  rich  at  the  expense  of  the  community 
without  living  in  terror  of  the  law.  So  in  the  business  world,  in 
the  era  out  of  which  we  are  growing,  honesty  was  often  meas- 
ured less  in  terms  of  loyalty  to  the  spirit  of  the  moral  law  than  in 
terms  of  observance  of  the  letter  of  the  penal  code.  But  we  are 
changing  all  that;  and  the  measure  of  our  establishment  of  a 
new  standard  of  conduct  in  political  and  in  business  life  is  the 
measure  of  our  progress  toward  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the 
crucial  question,  Can  our  democracy  endure? 

Plunkitt's  distinction  no  longer  distinguishes.  Graft  is  graft 
whether  it  has  outrun  the  enactments  of  the  penal  code  or  no. 


192 

Nevertheless  there  are  different  kinds  of  graft,  differing  not 
only  in  their  methods,  but  in  their  causes  and  in  the  remedies  by 
which  we  must  seek  to  eliminate  them.  But  before  we  can  in- 
telligently consider  them,  we  must  define  the  word  graft,  which 
in  the  political  sense  is  so  new  that  it  has  hardly  yet  reached  the 
dictionaries. 

Graft  is  the  use  of  public  office  for  private  gain.  (The  word 
has  also  a  secondary  meaning,  the  gain  which  comes  from  such 
use  of  public  office,  but  the  primary  meaning  is  the  more  im- 
portant one  and  it  is  the  one  in  which  I  shall  use  the  word  here.) 

Graft  is  the  use  of  public  office  for  private  gain;  and  it  is, 
broadly  speaking,  of  two  kinds.  In  the  one  kind,  the  gain  is  in 
the  form  of  money,  in  the  other  in  the  form  of 
Iwo  Kim  privilege.  The  two  kinds  are  often  found  inter- 

twined, and  of  course  the  ultimate  purpose  of 
what  may  be  called  privilege  graft  is  the  gaining  of  money;  but 
I  think  a  very  real  distinction  may  be  made,  nevertheless,  be- 
tween the  kind  of  graft  in  which  the  community's  loss  is  direct, 
in  money  from  the  treasury,  and  that  in  which  its  loss  is  indirect, 
through  privilege  improperly  and  unfairly  granted. 

Money  graft  is  a  common  feature,  not  only  of  city  governments 
but  of  every-day  business,  and  indeed  family  life.  The  cook  who 
gets  a  rake-off  from  the  butcher,  the  chauffeur  who  gets  a  com- 
mission from  the  automobile  repair  shop,  the  pressman  who  mys- 
teriously finds  himself  unable  to  get  results  with  any  brand  of 
printer's  ink  but  that  of  a  certain  maker,  the  buyer  who  accepts 
anything  from  simple  entertainment  to  elaborate  presents  (or 
indeed  a  regular  commission)  from  selling  agents — all  these 
are  grafters,  betraying  their  employers'  interests  for  the  money 
there  is  in  it 

An  abundance  of  this  petty  kind  of  graft  has  been  disclosed  by 

the  investigations  of  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  in  New 

York  City.    At  the  budget  exhibit  held  in  New 

York  recently  there  was  a  "junk"  table  on 

which  was  displayed  a  motley  collection  of  articles  ticketed  with 

the  prices  which  the  city  formerly  paid  for  them  and  the  prices 

it  now  paid  under  a  strict  system  of  inspection.    The  differences 

in  the  two  sets  of  prices  measured  the  reward  of  the  grafters 


HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND  193 

who  were  feeding  at  the  public  crib.  Tin  dippers  charged  at. 
$2.00  a  dozen,  when  their  true  value  was  sixty  cents  a  dozen; 
wiping  cloths  charged  at  $20  per  hundred  pounds  and  really  worth 
$7,  just  over  a  third  of  that  price;  galvanized  boat  cleats,  worth 
30  cents  apiece  and  charged  at  $2.60  apiece,  twelve  times  their 
value ;  iron  valve  wheels,  worth  six  cents  each  and  sold  to  the  city^ 
(or  would  have  been  in  the  old  days  when  Tammany  was  in 
undisputed  sway)  for  $1.50,  twenty-five  times  their  value.  A 
claim  of  $520  for  a  month's  rent  of  a  motor  car ;  the  furnishing 
to  the  city  of  oats  so  musty  and  unwholesome  that  horses  will 
eat  their  bedding  before  they  will  touch  them ;  claims  against  one 
city  department  for  coal  at  the  rate  of  100  tons  per  binful  when 
the  bins  into  which  the  coal  was  delivered  held  only  50  tons  each ; 
the  rejection  by  the  inspection  department  of  200,000  pounds  of 
meat,  13,000  pounds  of  poultry  and  over  500,000  pounds  of  for- 
age, all  of  which  had  been  passed  by  the  departments  which 
ordered  them :  these  are  isolated  examples,  taken  from  an  aston- 
ishing number  of  others,  of  the  money  graft  to  which  the  citizens 
of  New  York  City  have  been  subjected,  and  the  bills  for  which 
they  have  uncomplainingly  (because  unconsciously)  footed  when 
they  paid  their  taxes. 

In  Boston,  as  a  result  of  the  researches  of  the  Finance  Com- 
mission, the  president  of  the  common  council  was  convicted  of 
approving  a  bill  for  $200  for  books  which  were  never  delivered, 
and  an  alderman  received  a  sentence  of  two  years  for  raising  the 
amount  of  a  bill  and  pocketing  the  surplus.  And  in  Chicago 
the  Citizens'  Association  charges  that  a  foundry  company  re- 
ceived $30,000  more  than  the  regular  market  price  for  water- 
works castings  purchased  in  1908  and  1909. 

Another  form  of  the  same  kind  of  graft  is  in  the  purchase  not 

of  things  but  of  labor.     Payrolls  padded  with  unnecessary  or 

useless  employees,  the  acceptance  of  ridiculously 

scanty  days'  work  in  return  for  full  pay,  and  the 

creation  of  sinecures  for  favored  individuals  rob  the  treasury  of 

the  community  as  surely  as  if  the  coin  were  made  off  with  by  a 

thief  in  the  night. 

In  Chicago,  an  investigation  of  the  sewer  department  showed 
that  the  average  cost  of  cleaning  catch-basins  was  more  than  two 


194 


THE  GRAFTER  AT  WORK  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES 


and  one-half  times  what  the  same  gangs  of  workers  demonstrated 
that  they  could  make  the  average  cost  if  they  tried,  and  nearly 
three  and  one-half  times  what  several  gangs  showed  that  they 
could  do  the  work  for.  From  Springfield,  Illinois  (though  this 
is  outside  the  realm  of  municipal  government,  it  is  the  same  kind 
of  graft  that  could  be  found  in  many  a  city),  investigation  showed 
that  a  blacksmith  sixty  years  old  was  on  the  payroll  as  a  stenog- 
rapher at  $3  a  day,  although  he  was  in  Springfield  only  twice 
during  the  session ;  that  thirteen  men  were  paid  salaries  for  rais- 
ing and  lowering  windows  in  the  two  legislative  chambers ;  and 
that  one  employee  received  three  dollars  a  day  for  winding  a 
clock  once  a  week.  And  this  is  the  same  legislature  which 
elected  William  Lorimer  to  the  United  States  Senate.  One  more, 
example  from  New  York  City.  In  1907  it  cost  the  city  to  keep 
the  Bronx  Borough  Hall  more  or  less  clean  $19,707.25.  A  private 
company  offered  to  clean  the  building  as  well  as  it  was  then  being 
done  for  $1,800,  or  to  keep  it  really  clean  for  $3,600 — to  do  the 
work  as  badly  as  it  was  then  being  done  at  less  than  one-tenth  the 
cost,  or  to  do  it  well  for  less  than  one-fifth  the  cost. 

Another,  and  perhaps  a  more  serious,  form  of  money  graft 
is  that  involved  in  contracts  for  various  kinds  of  work  to  be  done 
for  the  city.  This  may  take  the  shape  of  letting  a  contract  to  a 
favored  contractor  at  a  price  higher  than  the  proper  cost  of  the 
work  to  be  done,  or  of  paying  for  work  either  not  done  or  done 
in  a  way  that  is  not  in  accordance  with  these  specifications.  A 
borough  president  in  New  York  City  and  two  contractors  were 
recently  indicted,  the  former  for  auditing  false  bills  for  work; 
on  bridges,  and  one  of  the  latter  for  contracting  to  make  certain 
bridge  repairs  with  new  concrete  and  then  merely  putting  a  coat 
of  "  whitewash  "  over  the  defective  parts ;  the  other  for  putting 
in  a  bill  for  work  on  sewers  which  was  not  done  at  all. 

In  Schenectady  an  electrical  contractor  was  convicted  of  con- 
tracting to  make  certain  repairs  to  the  jail  and  then  rendering 
false  bills  for  labor  which  was  not  employed  and  material  which 
was  not  used.  An  investigation  in  Chicago  showed  that  $45,000 
had  been  paid  for  the  excavation  of  shale  rock  in  the  construc- 
tion of  a  sewer  where  no  rock  was. 

The  last  type  of  money  graft  is  the  "  honest "  graft  of  Senator 


HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND  195 

Plunkitt,  in  which  the  city  pays  exorbitant  prices  for  land  for 
parks,  sites  of  public  buildings  or  what  not  because  somebody 
"  guessed  right "  as  to  where  the  park  or  the  school  house  or  the 
play  ground  or  the  aqueduct  was  going.  The  Bureau  of  Muni- 
cipal Research  has  unearthed  case  after  case  in  which  the  city 
has  paid  much  more  than  the  ruling  prices  for  land  for  city  uses. 
And  it  is  interesting  to  notice  how  often  the  one  who  has  "guessed 
right "  and  made  the  big  profit  on  what  Senator  Plunkitt  calls 
his  "  investment  and  foresight ",  has  been  more  or  less  closely 
connected  with  the  ruling  powers  of  Tammany  Hall. 

So  much  for  money  graft. 

Privilege  graft  is  the  second  grand  division  of  our  subject; 

and  privilege  graft  divides  itself  again  into  two  kinds :  Graft,  the 

.  purpose  of  which  is  to  secure  the  privilege  of 

breaking  the  law  with  impunity,  and  graft,  the 

purpose  of  which  is  to  secure  some  privilege  not  illegal  once  it  is 

granted,  but  none  the  less  detrimental  to  the  common  interests  of 

the  community. 

The  first  kind  of  privilege  graft  (which  by  the  way  is  the 
"  dishonest  graft "  of  Senator  Plunkitt)  is  the  rock  on  which  the 
administration  of  the  New  York  police  force  is  threatened  with 
constant  shipwreck.  The  system  of  protection  sold  by  the  police 
to  saloon-keepers  who  violate  the  laws  against  Sunday  liquor 
selling,  to  keepers  of  disorderly  resorts  and  gambling  houses,  and 
even  (it  is  a  matter  of  common  rumor)  to  pickpockets  and  other 
common  criminals  has  time  out  of  mind  been  the  insidious  enemy 
against  which  every  police  commissioner  has  been  forced  to  fight 
a  well-nigh  hopeless  battle.  Only  a  few  weeks  ago,  while  Mayor 
Gaynor  was  recovering  from  the  attack  which  had  been  made 
upon  him,  the  acting  mayor  brought  to  light  "  wide-open  "  con- 
ditions in  respect  to  vice  and  gambling,  which,  upon  the  mayor's 
return  to  duty,  forced  a  complete  reorganization  of  the  police 
administration.  And  anyone  familiar  with  past  history  would 
find  it  hard  to  believe  that  this  prevalence  of  open  vice  could  not 
be  explained  in  large  measure  by  an  underground  current  of 
police  graft. 

But  it  is  in  San  Francisco  that  the  wildest  orgy  of  every  con- 
ceivable kind  of  graft — "  honest "  and  "  dishonest ",  money  and 


196       THE  GRAFTER  AT  WORK  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES 

privilege,  legislative  and  administrative — has  been  disclosed. 
There  the  lid  has  been  not  only  lifted  but  hurled  away,  showing 
the  riot  of  corruption  in  all  its  astounding  details.  The  revela- 
tions there  are  not  exactly  matters  of  current  history,  except  in 
the  fact  that  the  city  has  recently  rejected  the  man  who  almost 
paid  with  his  life  for  his  temerity  in  aiding  the  disclosures  and 
in  prosecuting  the  men  responsible  for  the  cor- 

Graft  (Seer0'*      ruPtion'  and  in  the  fact  that  the  Punishment  of 
the  men  higher  up  in  the  saturnalia  have  been 

thwarted  by  a  community  which  apparently  prefers  business  to 
decency,  commercial  tranquillity  to  the  disturbances  of  muni- 
cipal house-cleaning.  But  the  tale,  several  years  old  as  it  is,  is  too, 
enlightening  not  to  be  recalled.  George  Kennan,  one  of  the  most 
careful  and  thorough  of  investigators,  writing  in  McClure's  Mag- 
azine, told  how  the  report  of  the  grand  jury  showed  that  ^  the 
administration  made  a  business  of  selling  immunity  to  gamblers, 
prize-fight  promoters  and  keepers  of  brothels;  that  the  great 
house  of  prostitution  at  620  Jackson  Street  was  virtually  a  muni- 
cipal institution ;  that  the  police  were  giving  protection  to  notor- 
ious criminals  and  taking  money  therefor;  that  the  municipal 
boards  were  blackmailing  law-breakers  and  compelling  honest 
men  to  pay  tribute ;  that  the  work  of  the  city  was  given  to  dis- 
honest contractors  who  divided  their  illegal  profits  with  the  offi- 
cials who  permitted  them  to  steal."  "  The  brothel  at  712  Pacific 
Street,"  Mr.  Kennan  continues,  "  paid  for  protection  .  .  .  about 
$23,000  a  year ;  and  the  '  Municipal  Crib ',  at  620  Jackson  Street, 
about  $40,000  a  year.  .  .  .  The  gamblers  of  Chinatown  paid  for 
protection  a  spot-cash  premium  of  $18,000,  and  a  regular  tribute 
of  $1,000  a  week,  or  $70,000  for  the  first  year.  The  pool-sellers 
of  the  city  paid  $20,000  a  month  during  the  racing  season,  or 
about  $120,000  a  year,  and  .  .  .  the  Prize-Fight  Trust  bought 
protection  at  $20,000  a  year." 

The  mayor  and  the  boss  who  stood  behind  him  invented  other 
ingenious  methods  of  intimidation  and  extortion.  The  mayor 
became  a  secret  partner  in  a  wholesale  liquor  firm  and  used  his 
power  over  the  police  commission  to  make  saloon  keepers  use 
the  company's  whiskey.  The  saloon  licences  had  to  be  renewed 
every  three  months,  and  as  many  of  the  places  were  constantly 


HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND  197 

violating  municipal  regulations  by  selling  drink  to  minors,  by 
maintaining  side  entrances,  or  by  affording  facilities  to  gamb- 
lers, bunco-men  and  thieves,  it  was  easy  for  the  police  commis- 
sioners to  blackmail  them  into  buying  the  "  administration " 
whiskey.  By  the  same  means  the  mayor  and  his  confederates 
forced  saloons  and  houses  of  ill- fame  to  sell  or  use  the  champagne 
of  the  Hilbert  Company  (the  concern  in  which  the  mayor  was  a 
partner)  ;  the  beer  of  Fire  Commissioner  Wreden;  the  cigars  of 
Police  Commissioner  Drinkhouse,  and  the  saloon  crockery  of 
Police  Commissioner  Poheim  and  O'Grady;  and  upon  all  this 
merchandise  they  received  a  commission. 

Here  we  see  the  "  dishonest "  graft,  repudiated  by  Plunkitt 
of  Tammany  Hall,  in  its  full  flower — the  most  complete  develop- 
ment of  that  privilege  graft  which  consists  in  buying  the  right  to 
break  the  law.  When  we  look  at  the  gains  made  by  the  dishonest 
officials  who  favored  (or  blackmailed)  their  partners  in  the  graft, 
it  looks  very  much  like  another  form  of  money  graft.  But  it 
should  be  remembered  that  in  these  cases  what  the  community 
loses  is  not  primarily  in  money  (although  every  cent  paid  for 
graft  undoubtedly  comes  ultimately  out  of  the  pockets  of  the 
public,  by  however  roundabout  a  road)  but  in  decency  and  order- 
liness, in  morality  and  that  righteousness  which  not  only  exalteth 
a  nation  but  without  which  no  community  can  achieve  its  highest 
destiny. 

In  San  Francisco,  too,  have  been  revealed  equally  cynical  and 
no  less  highly-developed  examples  of  the  other  kind  of  privilege 
graft.  The  boss,  Abe  Ruef,  when  he  had  elected  his  mayor  and 
so  secured  control  of  the  municipal  administration,  became  a  sort 
of  municipal  dictator.  If  a  business  firm  or  corporation  wanted 
a  contract,  a  theater  permit  or  a  spur-track  privilege,  it  went  di- 
rectly to  Ruef,  engaged  him  ostensibly  as  legal  counsel,  and  paid 
him  either  a  lump  sum  for  a  specified  transaction,  or  a  regular 
salary  of  from  five  to  twelve  thousand  dollars  a  year  as  general 
counsel.  These  fees  he  divided  with  the  mayor,  who  manipulated 
matters  in  the  administrative  boards.  Later  when  the  machine 
got  control  of  the  board  of  supervisors  as  well,  Ruef's  services 
as  counsel  were  sought  by  wealthy  and  powerful  corporations. 
To  quote  again  from  George  Kennan: 


198       THE  GRAFTER  AT  WORK  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES 

"  The  Home  Telephone  Company  and  the  United  States  Inde- 
pendent Telephone  Company  wanted  a  chance  to  compete  with 
the  Pacific  States  Telephone  Company,  which  was  then  in  undis- 
puted possession  of  the  San  Francisco  field;  the  street-car  com- 
pany known  as  the  United  Railroads  sought  to  get  a  franchise 
which  would  give  it  the  right  to  use  overhead  electric  trolleys 
instead  of  wire  cables ;  the  San  Francisco  Gas  and  Electric  Com- 
pany desired  an  ordinance  which  would  authorize  it  to  charge 
consumers  of  gas  eighty-five  instead  of  seventy-five  cents  per 
thousand  feet;  and  a  group  of  real-estate  speculators  who  were 
incorporated  as  the  Parkside  Realty  Company  wished  a  fran- 
chise for  a  street  railway  which  would  give  the  public  access  to 
their  suburban  property. 

"  All  of  these  corporations  proceeded  at  once  to  engage  Ruef 
as  special  counsel;  and  as  the  ordinances  or  franchises  which 
they  wished  to  obtain  would  be  immensely  valuable  to  them,  they 
did  not  hesitate  to  offer  him  tens  of  thousands  and  in  some  cases 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  for  his  services  and  '  influence.' 
The  Pacific  States  Telephone  Company  paid  him  to  help  keep 
rival  companies  out,  and  the  Home  Telephone  Company  paid  him 
for  helping  to  get  a  franchise  that  would  enable  it  to  come  in. 
He  took  large  '  fees '  from  both,  and  then  betrayed  and  threw 
overboard  the  one  from  which  he  had  received  least.  The  Gas  and 
Electric  Company  paid  him  for  the  eighty-five-cent  gas  ordinance, 
and  the  United  Railroads  and  Parkside  companies  made  deal* 
with  him  for  their  franchises.  By  the  terms  of  the  bargains  that 
he  made  with  these  corporations,  he  received  from  them,  in  the 
aggregate,  nearly  half  a  million  dollars,  and  this  sum  he  shared 
with  the  mayor  and  the  board  of  supervisors.  The  money  was 
paid  to  him  ostensibly  as  a  lawyer,  and  for  legal  services;  but, 
inasmuch  as  every  one  of  these  corporations  already  had  its  own 
attorney,  the  thing  really  purchased  was  favorable  action  of  the 
mayor  and  supervisors  on  measures  pending  before  them." 

In  San  Francisco  the  corrupters  of  municipal  life  pushed  the 
business  of  grafting  to  its  farthest  limits.  Where  in  other  cities 
one  kind  of  graft  or  another,  or  perhaps  two  or  three  kinds,  have 
satisfied  the  greed  of  dishonest  officials,  in  San  Francisco  every 
variety  known  to  man  and  some  new  varieties  invented  for  the 
occasion  were  boldly  practised.  A  handbook  of  "  The  Complete 
Grafter  "  might  easily  be  compiled  without  stirring  outside  the 
city. 

The  variety  of  privilege  graft  which  we  are  now  considering, 
however,  is  not  confined  to  large  cities.  In  Columbus,  Ohio,  a 


HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND  199 

former  member  of  the  city's  board  of  control  has  been  sent  to 
the  penitentiary  for  accepting  a  bribe  from  the  representative  of 
a  paving  company.  In  Ashtabula,  Ohio,  the  oldest  member  of 
the  city  council  was  convicted  of  soliciting  a  bribe  from  thq 
manager  of  a  gas  company  in  connection  with  a  gas  ordinance. 
Three  members  and  three  former  members  of  the  city  councils  of 
Rockford,  Illinois,  have  pleaded  guilty  of  accepting  bribes  for  the 
passage  of  an  electric  lighting  ordinance.  The  mayor  of  Law- 
rence, Massachusetts,  has  gone  to  jail  for  participation  in  a  con- 
spiracy to  bribe  members  of  the  board  of  aldermen. 

And  so  the  story  goes,  rising  again  to  melodramatic  heights 
when  we  reach  Pittsburgh.  In  the  one  branch  of  graft  in  which 
that  city  seems  to  have  specialized,  its  achievements  rival  those 
of  San  Francisco. 

An  able  and  public-spirited  voters'  league,  in  co-operation  with 
a  high-minded  and  fearless  mayor,  has  uncovered  an  elaborate 
system  of  the  sale  of  privilege  by  the  common 
and  select  councils  of  the  city.  The  ring-leader 
of  the  grafting  combination  in  an  unguarded  confession  to  a 
detective,  who  was  posing  as  a  paving  contractor  and  offering 
to  buy  the  privilege  of  supplying  the  city  with  his  particular  type 
of  pavement,  declared  that  only  six  members  of  the  two  councils 
did  not  take  money  for  their  votes.  These  six  honest  men  he 
sneered  at  as  "  easy  marks  "  and  at  the  same  time  he  denominated 
most  of  the  grafting  councilmen  as  "  hoodlums  ",  who  sold  their 
votes  for  anything  they  could  get — five  dollars  or  even  a  single 
dollar.  But  the  controlling  combination  had  an  unbreakable  grip 
on  legislation,  and  their  rates  of  pay  were  far  from  being  on  so 
petty  a  scale.  The  grafting  operation  which  the  investigation 
brought  to  light  was  the  sale  to  six  of  the  leading  banks  of  Pitts- 
burgh of  the  privilege  of  acting  as  depositaries  of  the  city's  funds 
— a  privilege  of  great  value,  for  the  city's  daily  balances  some- 
times amount  to  $9,000,000,  and  in  addition  the  city  has  at  times 
sold,  far  in  advance,  bonds  for  public  improvements  and  kept 
the  money  for  long  periods  idle  on  deposit  in  the  banks.  For  the 
coveted  privilege  the  six  banks  paid  $102,500,  of  which  fire 
councilmen  received  from  $11,000  to  $15,000  each  and  others  on 
the  fringe  of  the  combination  other  sums  far  smaller  and  varying 
according  to  each  man's  price. 


200       THE  GRAFTER  AT  WORK  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES 

The  accomplishments  of  the  Voters'  League,  Mayor  Guthrie, 
and  the  district  attorney's  office  in  investigating  this  graft  system 
and  prosecuting  the  participants  in  it  has  been  summed-up  in 
tabular  form  by  Charles  Edward  Russell  in  the  Cosmopolitan. 
His  summary  is  dated  June  I,  1910.  It  reads: 

Total  membership  Select  and  Common  Councils,  1908....  155 

Accused  of  grafting 105 

Exonerated  by  grand  jury 2 

Indicted  98 

Confessed  S3 

Councilmen  tried  and  convicted 6 

Members  awaiting  trial 42 

Members  that  are  fugitives 3 

Bankers  indicted 7 

Bankers  that  pleaded  nolo  contendere 5 

Middlemen  indicted 2 

Jury-fixers  convicted 2 

Here  my  survey  must  end.  It  is  lamentably  far  from  being  a 
comprehensive  presentation  of  the  subject;  it  is  only  an  attempt 
to  make  a  sketch,  in  broad  outlines,  of  the  grafter  at  work  in 
American  cities.  It  only  remains  to  suggest  some  of  the  causes 
which  underly  the  phenomena  which  are  apparently  so  wide- 
spread. 

The  tap  root  of  the  graft  evil,  obviously,  is  the  perverse  de- 
sire, common  to  men  everywhere  and  in  all  times,  to  become  rich 
without  labor,  to  get  something  for  nothing. 
Tap  Root  gut  tjiat  Desire  js  equaiiy  one  of  the  roots  of  so 

many  other  evils  that  we  are  very  little  further  along  when  we 
recognize  it  as  the  fundamental  cause  of  graft.  And  if  we  look 
upon  it  as  the  one  cause  whose  elimination  we  must  aim  at,  if 
we  expect  to  wait  for  the  destruction  of  graft  until  we  have  cured 
men  of  greed  and  covetousness,  we  may  well  despair  of  the  Re- 
public. No;  recognizing  that  fundamental  cause  we  must  look 
for  the  collateral  conditions  which  make  it  possible  for  men  to 
exploit  the  community  to  serve  the  ends  of  their  own  cupidity, 
and  at  those  conditions  we  must  aim  our  regenerating  efforts. 
What  are  some  of  those  conditions  ? 

A  lack  of  business  methods  in  the  administration  of  the  muni- 


HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND  20 1 

cipal  units  which  we  are  gradually  coming  to  realize  are  not  states 
in  little  but  business  corporations  in  the  large.  And  the  business 
which  we  need  in  our  city  governments  is  not  that  whose  lack 
of  ideals  is  suggested  in  the  cynical  phrase,  Business  is  business, 
but  that  which  seeks  as  its  ideals  economy,  efficiency  and  public 
service. 

A  second  cause,  it  seems  to  me,  lies  in  the  retention  in  most 
American  cities  of  comparatively  large  legislative  bodies — boards 
of  aldermen,  common  councils,  boards  of  control — whose  mem- 
bers are  elected  by  wards.  The  smaller  the  unit 
Large  area  Q^  representation,  said  the  mayor  of  a  great 

American  city  the  other  day,  the  smaller  the  man 
who  will  normally  be  chosen  to  represent  it.  And  the  phrase 
"  ward  politics "  has  become  a  synonym  for  conditions  from 
which  can  be  expected  little  that  is  enlightened  or  productive  of 
the  public  welfare.  The  usual  Board  of  Aldermen  is  bad  enough ; 
but  when  we  have  two  chambers  in  the  municipal  legislature  as  in 
Pittsburgh  conditions  are  ripe  for  just  such  corruption  as  flour- 
ished there. 

A  third  source  of  misgovernment  and  consequently  of  oppor- 
tunities for  graft  is  to  be  found  in  the  denial  to  municipalities 
of  home  rule.  Where  a  city's  charter  is  made  by  a  State  Legis- 
lature, and  its  smallest  details  altered  and  revised  at  the  whim  of 
the  legislators,  regardless  of  the  wishes  of  the  people  of  the  city, 
the  city  is  deprived  of  responsibility  for  its  own  government. 
And  the  evils  of  irresponsible  government  are  many  and  grave. 
Especially  is  there  danger  where  the  state  legislates  on  such  a 
matter  as  the  liquor  question  without  consulting  the  convictions 
or  prejudices  of  the  municipal  community.  If,  for  instance,  as 
in  New  York  City,  a  state  law  requires  saloons  to  be  closed  on 
Sunday  while  a  large  fraction  of  the  community  wish  to  be  free 
to  buy  liquor  on  Sunday,  the  invitation  to  violation  of  the  law, 
accompanied  by  inevitable  graft,  is  irresistible. 

A  fourth  cause  is  lax  or  no  regulation  of  public  service  cor- 
porations. The  indispensable  basis  of  every  public  service  busi- 
ness is  privilege — privilege  which  is  perfectly  legitimate  when 
granted  by  the  community  with  proper  safeguards  and  provision 
for  adequate  returns  in  service  and  compensation.  Under  a  sys- 


202        THE  GRAFTER  AT  WORK  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES 

tern  which  guarantees  those  safeguards  by  strict  regulation  dis- 
honest city  officials  have  nothing  to  sell  to  public  service  cor- 
porations, there  is  no  illegitimate  privilege  which  the  corporations 
can  buy.  And  away  goes  the  most  subtle  and  dangerous  form  of 
privilege  graft. 

The  last  source  of  graft  in  municipal  government  lies  in  politics. 
Where  the  political  boss  is,  not  far  away  is  the  possibility  if  not 
invariably  the  actuality  of  graft.  The  system  which  makes  men 
in  voting  on  their  problems  of  city  government  divide  along  the 
same  lines  as  in  state  and  national  politics  is  not  only  absurd  in 
theory  but  evil  in  its  results  in  practice.  Corrupt  politics  and  cor- 
rupt business  too  often  find  it  to  their  mutual  advantage  to  unite 
to  produce  corrupt  municipal  government.  And  anything  which 
helps  to  purify  politics,  to  destroy  the  machine,  to  eliminate  the 
boss  will  help  to  abolish  graft  from  our  city  governments. 

Graft  is  perhaps  the  most  dangerous  evil  of  our  American 
democracy.  But  the  remedy  for  the  evils  of  democracy,  says  de 
Tocqueville,  is  more  democracy.  We  shall  do  most  to  eradicate 
this  evil  of  our  democracy  by  striving  for  more  genuine,  more 
fundamental,  more  wide-spreading  popular  rule. 


The   Correlation   of  Financial  and 
Physical   Statistics   of  Cities. 

By  W.  F.  WILLOUGHBY,  Ph.D., 

Assistant  Director  of  the  Census. 

The  keeping  by  cities  of  accurate  and  logically-classified  records 
of  their  financial  transactions,  and  the  publication  of  such  records 
in  proper  form,  is  urged  by  all  persons  interested  in  improving 
municipal  conditions,  not  merely  in  order  that  the  public  may 
have  information  by  which  to  judge  the  character  and  magnitude 
of  municipal  operations,  but  in  order  that  the  city  officials  them- 
selves, as  well  as  the  public,  may  have  the  data  by  which  to  deter- 
mine how  municipal  affairs  are  being  managed. 

It  is,  of  course,  desirable  that  each  city  should  know  from  year 
to  year  what  are  the  amounts  of  its  receipts  and  expenditures  by 
items  and  its  obligations  apart  from  any  specific  use  being  made 
of  these  figures  other  than  to  let  the  city  officials  and  the  people 
generally  know  how  the  city  stands  financially.  If  real  progress, 
however,  is  to  be  made  in  the  way  of  improving  the  organization 
and  business  methods  of  the  city,  in  securing  greater  efficiency 
and  economy  and  in  having  the  activities  of  the  city  directed  in 
the  most  desirable  channels,  these  financial  figures  must  be 
brought  into  correlation  with  the  physical  facts  to  which  they  re- 
late. If  financial  records  and  statistics  of  cities  are  thus  to  serve 
the  full  measure  of  their  usefulness  they  must  be  of  such  a 
character  that  they  will  furnish  a  basis  for  passing  judgment  upon 
the  extent  to  which  the  value  received  for  expenditures  made  is 
adequate 

The  case  for  this  correlation  of  financial  and  physical  statistics 
of  cities  has  been  excellently  stated  by  Mr.  A.  P.  Folwell,  editor 
of  the  "  Municipal  Journal  and  Engineer,"  in  an  editorial  which 
appeared  in  that  journal,  September  21,  1910,  under  the  title  of 
"  Municipal  Records  and  the  Census  " : 

"  A  superintendent  of  water  or  lighting  who  does  not  so  keep 

(203) 


204     FINANCIAL  AND  PHYSICAL  STATISTICS  OF  CITIES 

his  records  as  to  know  absolutely  whether  his  department  is 
operating  at  a  loss  or  a  profit  cannot  be  expected  to  greatly  im- 
prove its  financial  status.  Next  in  importance 
Need  for  Physical  is  the  wisdom  from  learning  from  other  similar 
Statistics  departments,  by  comparing  their  results  and 

finances  with  those  of  his  own,  and  this  in  detail 
and  not  in  final  results  only.  That  one  city  spends  $5,000  a  year 
on  street  cleaning  and  another  $10,000  conveys  no  information 
of  value.  How  many  miles  of  a  given  class  of  pavements  are 
cleaned?  How  often  and  how  thoroughly?  How  much  material 
is  removed?  What  is  the  cost  per  mile  and  per  cubic  yard  in 
terms  of  days  of  labor  ?  These  and  similar  questions  must  be  an- 
swered before  a  comparison  can  be  made  which  will  serve  any 
useful  purpose.  What  does  it  cost  per  mile  to  maintain  pipe 
sewers,  and  what  those  which  can  be  entered  for  cleaning? 
Every  city  should  be  able  to  learn  from  its  officials  the  answers 
to  such  questions  concerning  its  own  property,  utilities  and  activi- 
ties. But  it  is  unfortunately  true  that  a  great  many  do  not  know 
how  many  miles  of  sewers  they  own,  how  many  yards  of  each 
kind  of  pavement,  or  even  the  total  cost  of  maintenance  of  either. 
'  Amount  appropriated,'  '  amount  expended/  and  '  balance  '  might 
just  as  well  constitute  the  entire  report  of  some  department  heads, 
so  far  as  real  information  is  concerned;  and  cases  have  been 
known  where  even  these  three  items  would  not  check." 

To  meet  the  requirements  of  good  administration  it  is  thus 
evident  that  three  classes  of  statistical  data,  two  of  which  consist 
of  original  data  and  one  of  derived  data,  must  be  had  regarding 
municipal  operations,  viz:  (i)  financial  statistics,  (2)  physical 
and  operation  statistics,  and  (3)  a  correlation  of  the  two  so  as  to 
give  results  expressed  in  such  terms  or  units  of  measurement  as 
will  most  clearly  reveal  cost  or  other  factors  by  which  the  real 
efficiency  and  economy  with  which  city  affairs  are  administered 
can  best  be  determined. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  dilate  to  any  extent  upon  either  the 
necessity  for  securing  data  of  the  first  class  or  the  extent  to  which 
such  information  is  now  being  secured.  Prac- 
Interestin  tically  all  cities  are  now  paying  constantly  ill- 

Statistics  creasing  attention  both  to  the  matter  of  record- 

ing their  financial  transactions  in  conformity 
with  the  most  approved  principles  of  accounting  and  of  giving 
the  facts  brought  out  by  such  records  to  the  public  in  a  more 


W.  F.  WILLOUGHBY  205 

complete  and  easily  comprehensible  form.  The  Bureau  of  the 
Census  hopes  that  its  work  of  compiling  and  publishing  annual 
volumes  of  statistics  of  cities  having  a  population  of  30,000  and 
over,  which  work  dates  from  the  year  1902,  has  contributed  some- 
thing towards  fostering  this  increased  interest.  Especially  has 
the  Bureau,  through  the  full  discussion  presented  in  its  reports 
of  accounting  terminology  and  other  features  of  accountancy  as 
applied  to  government  operations,  sought  to  promote  the  adopt- 
ion by  the  cities  of  improved  financial  methods  and  uniformity 
of  practice.  As  far  as  in  its  power  lay  it  has  thus  sought  to 
standardize  the  whole  matter  of  municipal  bookkeeping  and  re- 
porting. In  this  effort  it  has  always  been  powerfully  aided  by 
the  National  Municipal  League  and  other  organizations.  Indeed, 
as  is  well  known,  the  inception  by  the  Federal  Government  of  the 
work  of  collecting  and  publishing  municipal  statistics  is  due  to 
the  National  Municipal  League  and  the  classification  of  receipts 
and  expenditures  adopted  by  the  Bureau  is  substantially  the  one 
recommended  by  the  league. 

As  regards  the  second  class  of  statistical  data,  the  Bureau 
almost  from  the  outset  of  its  work  recognized  that  if  it  confined 
its  reports  strictly  to  the  field  of  financial  sta- 
tistics it  would  largely  fail  to  give  to  the  public 
the  information  regarding  municipal  statistics 
that  was  urgently  demanded.  It  is  almost  if  not  quite  as  de- 
sirable to  know  the  number  of  teachers  and  pupils  as  the  amount 
expended  on  schools,  and  the  number  of  policemen  as  expendi- 
tures for  police  protection.  The  Bureau  has,  consequently, 
steadily  increased  the  scope  of  its  work  in  the  direction  of  securing 
information  descriptive  of  the  physical  properties  of  cities,  per- 
sonnel and  other  factors  of  municipal  activities  showing  the  opera- 
tions concerning  which  the  financial  facts  recorded  relate.  The 
development  of  this  phase  of  its  activities  finally  reached  such  a 
stage  that  the  inclusion  of  the  data  collected  in  the  regular  census 
volume  of  statistics  of  cities  is  no  longer  possible.  To  do  so 
would  unduly  expand  the  bulk  and  complexity  of  that  report.  It? 
has  consequently  been  decided  that,  beginning  with  the  reports 
for  the  year  1909,  the  Bureau  will  issue  two  series  of  reports 
on  statistics  of  cities,  the  one  devoted  to  financial  statistics  proper 


206     FINANCIAL  AND  PHYSICAL  STATISTICS  OF  CITIES 

and  the  other  to  statistics  of  physical  properties,  their  operation 
and  personnel. 

The  prime  necessity  for  this  separation  arises  from  the  fact 
that  if  statistics  of  the  second  class  are  to  be  of  real  value  they 
must  concern  themselves  with  the  details  of  the 
Census  Plans  subject  covered,  and  be  technical  reports  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  term.  The  planning  and  carrying  through  of 
inquiries  on  such  a  scale  is  an  undertaking  of  such  magnitude 
and  complexity  that  it  would  be  folly  to  attempt  to  cover  all 
phases  of  municipal  activities  at  one  time.  The  Bureau  has  ac- 
cordingly outlined  for  itself  a  program  which  contemplates  taking 
up  the  different  fields  of  municipal  activities  seriatim  so  that  all 
will  be  covered  in  a  five-year  period.  In  the  case  of  financial  sta- 
tistics it  is  practically  imperative  that  the  record  should  be  a 
continuous  one  from  year  to  year.  No  such  necessity  exists  in 
the  case  of  physical  statistics.  Here  data  permitting  of  compari- 
sons from  five  years  to  five  years  serve  almost  every  purpose. 
But  whether  this  be  so  or  not  the  subject  is  one  in  which  quality 
and  completeness  for  one  field  is  preferable  to  quantity  and  in- 
completeness in  respect  to  a  number  of  fields.  The  field  that  has 
been  selected  for  consideration  in  the  first  of  this  new  series  of 
reports  is  that  of  sewers,  refuse  disposal  and  highways,  and  work 
on  this  investigation  is  now  in  active  progress. 

I  have  devoted  considerable  time  to  this  discussion  of  the 
physical  statistics  of  cities  and  the  plans  that  have  been  formu- 
lated by  the  Census  Bureau  for  securing  such  statistics  since  it  is 
evident  that  no  proper  correlation  of  two  factors  can  be  had  until 
the  two  factors  themselves  are  available.  This  then  is  the  first 
fundamental  point  that  we  who  are  interested,  not  merely  acad- 
emically in  the  matter  of  municipal  efficiency,  but  practically  in 
promoting  such  efficiency  in  specific  cases,  must  grasp;  that  in 
the  same  way  that  every  possible  effort  has  been  made  to  encour- 
age cities  to  keep  their  financial  records  in  proper  form,  so  they 
must  now  be  urged  to  keep  correspondingly-accurate  and  logi- 
cally-arranged records  of  their  physical  properties  and  transac- 
tions. Mr.  Folwell,  in  the  editorial  from  which  I  have  quoted, 
points  out  how  far  from  satisfactory  are  the  practices  of  most 
cities  in  this  respect.  It  is  manifestly  impossible  for  an  indi- 


W.  F.  WILLOUGHBY  207 

vidual  city  accurately  to  correlate  its  financial  and  physical  sta- 
tistics with  a  view  to  figuring  costs  and  much  more  so  for  the 
Census  Bureau  to  present  statistics  comparing  city  with  city  until 
the  primary  data  regarding  both  factors  are  available  in  at  least  a 
fairly  satisfactory  form. 

This  being  so,  the  query  might  well  be  made  whether  the  Census 
Bureau  is  justified  in  going  to  the  expense  that  is  involved  in  its 
undertaking  when  the  results  are  certain  to  fall  so  far  short  of 
what  is  desirable.  The  only  answer  to  this  is  that  the  Bureau, 
constituting  as  it  does  the  only  central  official  agency  for  securing 
information  regarding  cities,  believes  that  it  has  as  one  of  its 
prime  duties  that  of  sparing  no  pains  to  promote  the  establish- 
ment and  maintenance  by  the  cities  of  systems  by  which  the  origi- 
nal data  that  it  is  the  function  of  the  Bureau  to  collate  may  be 
rendered  available  in  the  best  possible  form.  It  is  impossible  to 
estimate  the  good  that  has  been  done  in  this  way  by  the  Division 
of  Vital  Statistics  of  the  Bureau  in  securing  the  adoption  by  the 
states  and  cities  of  the  country  of  proper  methods  for  the  regis- 
tration of  births  and  deaths.  Had  it  not  made  this  effort  a  very 
essential  part  of  its  work,  the  reports  it  now  issues  on  vital  statis- 
tics would  be  of  far  less  value  than  they  are.  In  the  same  way 
the  Bureau  can  only  hope  to  improve  greatly  the  statistics  of  cities 
by  doing  what  it  can  to  improve  the  character  of  the  primary  data 
as  secured  by  the  cities  themselves  which  it  has  to  use  in  its  com- 
pilations. 

Agitation  of  the  question  by  the  Bureau,  and  by  such  bodies  as 
the  National  Municipal  League,  can  do  a  great  deal,  but  tangible 
results  can  only  be  expected  by  actually  attacking  the  problem. 
This  the  Bureau  has  done  in  its  investigation  of  sewers,  refuse 
disposal  and  highways  which  is  now  in  progress.  Although  the 
schedules  and  instructions  for  this  investigation  were  only  adopted 
after  most  careful  study  and  consultation  with  experts  outside 
the  government  service,  it  is  certain  that  their  practical  use  will 
reveal  many  defects  which  no  amount  of  office  study  could  de- 
velop. By  constantly  incorporating  improvements  as  brought  to 
light  in  this,  and  the  schedules  to  be  drafted  for  the  other  fields, 
there  ought  gradually  to  be  evolved  a  physical  statistics  data 
scheme  that  will  not  only  be  reasonably  satisfactory  but  of  a 


208     FINANCIAL  AND  PHYSICAL  STATISTICS  OF  CITIES 

character  tending  to  standardize  practice  so  as  to  permit  of  inter- 
city comparisons. 

In  thus  attempting  to  point  out  what  it  is  believed  the  Census 
Bureau  can  do  in  furthering  this  movement  for  the  securing  of 
the  data  which  are  absolutely  necessary  if  real 
Duty  01  Oitizen  progress  is  to  be  made  in  improving  municipal 
administration  a  great  mistake  would  be  made  by  me  if  I  have 
left  the  impression  that  the  most  important  results  can  be  accom- 
plished by  the  Bureau.  On  the  contrary  it  cannot  be  too  em- 
phatically stated  that  primarily  the  task  of  securing  these  data 
rests  upon  the  cities  individually.  The  Census  Bureau  can  be  a 
promoting  agency,  a  clearing-house  or  a  bureau  of  standards  if 
the  cities  will  permit  it,  but  the  real  work  must  be  done  by  the 
cities  themselves. 

Another  possible  false  impression  that  I  wish  to  correct  is  that 
as  yet  nothing  has  been  done  by  the  cities  of  the  United  States  in 
the  way  of  recording  and  publishing  statistics  regarding  their 
physical  properties  and  operations,  or  that  no  data  is  now  avail- 
able by  which  a  correlation  of  financial  and  physical  statistics  of 
cities  may  be  attempted.  An  examination  of  reports  of  muni- 
cipal officials  would  undoubtedly  reveal  many  instances  where 
information  of  this  character  is  presented.  The  value  of  these 
data,  however,  is  largely  circumscribed  by  the  fact  that  they  are 
buried,  so  to  speak,  in  reports  of  the  different  officials  so  that  they 
are  not  readily  available  to  others  than  the  persons  who  compiled 
them  and  that  they  do  not  rest  upon  any  uniform  basis. 

The  Census  Bureau  itself,  moreover,  has  always  recognized 
the  necessity  for  correlating  financial  and  physical  statistics  of 
cities  and  has  actually  attempted  such  correlations  in  a  few  cases. 
In  the  report  for  1907  it  thus,  in  presenting  statistics  of  muni- 
cipally-owned water-works,  has  shown  the  earnings,  expenses  of 
operation  and  interest  on  investments  on  the  unit  of  1,000,000 
gallons  of  water  supplied  to  pipes ;  and  in  giving  statistics  relating 
to  the  police  department  has  figured  the  average  expense  of  the 
department  per  regular  police  employee.  Similarly  for  the  fire 
department,  expenses  per  regular  fireman  and  per  employee,  in- 
cluding office  force,  mechanics,  etc.,  were  computed.  The  cost 
of  refuse  collection  and  disposal  for  cities  of  over  30,000  inhabi- 


W.  F.  WILLOUGHBY  309 


tants  was  shown  according  to  the  units  average  total  cost 
ton  collected,  average  net  cost  per  ton  collected  and  total  cost  per 
capita  of  population.  The  expense  of  repairing  streets  in  1907 
and  the  average  of  the  same  expense  in  1903,  1905  and  1907  were 
computed  per  100  square  yards  of  improved  streets.  Payments 
for  street  lighting  were  shown  per  acre  of  land  area  and  per 
capita.  The  price  per  lamp  per  year  for  each  class  of  lights  was 
also  reported.  The  expenses  of  street  cleaning  were  shown  by 
the  units  1,000  square  yards  subject  to  regular  cleaning;  1,000,000 
square  yards  cleaned  once  and  per  capita,  and  the  expenses  of 
street  sprinkling  by  the  units  square  yards  subject  to  sprinkling 
and  per  capita. 

It  is  an  open  question  whether  in  view  of  the  character  of  the 
data  with  which  it  had  to  deal  it  was  justified  in  attempting  such 
direct  statements  bearing  upon  unit  costs.  Here  too,  however, 
the  motives  of  the  Bureau  were  to  make  a  beginning  and  seek 
in  this  way  to  arouse  interest  in,  and  emphasize  the  importance 
of,  data  of  this  character. 

It  cannot  but  be  remarked  that  this  paper  has  had  to  deal 
almost  exclusively  with  the  nature  of  the  problem  of  the  corre- 
lation of  financial  and  physical  statistics  of  cities  rather  than 
with  an  actual  exposition  of  such  correlation.  It  is  always  pleas- 
anter  to  deal  with  results  than  with  what  must  be  done  in  order 
to  secure  results,  and  no  one  regrets  more  than  the  writer  that 
conditions  are  not  such  as  to  make  it  possible  for  him  to  under- 
take the  more  pleasant  task.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  we  arc 
but  on  the  threshold  of  work  in  this  field.  It  is,  however,  en- 
couraging that  the  period  is  past  when  it  is  necessary  to  urge 
the  desirability  of  securing  information  of  this  character.  The 
subject  of  cost  keeping  is  in  the  air  and  is  receiving  an  enormous 
amount  of  attention  by  both  private  and  public  bodies. 

All  this  activity  leads  me  to  propound  the  very  important  ques- 
tion whether  the  time  is  not  now  ripe  for  the  inauguration  of 
another  form  of  correlation  or  possibly  to  em- 
Duty  of  the  piOy  a  more  accurate  term  co-operation.    There 

JVatipnal  w         tjme  ante(jating  the  ^ate  of  the  organiza- 

Mumcipal  ,  .     T 

Leajrue  tlon  °         s  League  when  the  great  municipal 

problems  were  essentially  political  or  constitu- 


2io     FINANCIAL  AND  PHYSICAL  STATISTICS  OF  CITIES 

tional.  The  rapid  development  of  municipal  activities  and  the 
increased  complexity  of  urban  life  brought  about  a  condition 
of  affairs  where  the  charters,  organic  acts  or  other  fundamental 
laws  governing  the  organization,  powers  and  duties  of  cities 
were  thoroughly  inadequate  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  situation. 
At  the  same  time  the  study  of  political  science  and  public  law 
had  not  reached  the  stage  where  there  was  anything  like  a  com- 
mon agreement  in  respect  to  the  principles  that  should  be  fol- 
lowed in  determining  the  political  status  of  municipalities,  the 
character  of  their  organization,  or  the  relationship  that  should 
exist  between  these  bodies  and  the  state.  At  this  period  it  was 
both  natural  and  desirable  that  attention  should  be  concentrated 
almost  wholly  upon  the  political  aspects  of  the  municipal  prob- 
lem. Intense  interest  in  this  matter  was  displayed.  University 
after  university  inaugurated  courses  on  government  and  devel- 
oped group  after  group  of  professors  and  students  specializing 
in  the  field.  The  results  of  their  studies  were  given  to  the  public 
in  scores  of  books,  many  of  great  value.  The  outcome  was  that 
public  opinion  was  fairly  organized  and  the  demand  for  organic 
changes  in  respect  to  the  status,  duties,  and  powers  of  muni- 
cipalities became  one  that  could  not  be  resisted. 

With  this  position  reached  the  movement  passed  from  one  of 
dealing  with  generalities  to  one  where  the  formulation  of  specific 
measures  became  the  point  of  real  importance.  It  is  one  thing 
to  point  out  that  action  in  a  certain  direction  is  desirable  and 
quite  another  to  actually  formulate  the  plans  by  which  this  prog- 
ress is  to  be  achieved.  To  the  National  Municipal  League  be- 
longs the  credit  of  grasping  at  the  opportune  time  the  importance 
of  this  distinction  and  of  courageously  undertaking  the  task  of 
drafting  the  document  by  which  the  reforms  so  long  advocated  in 
general  terms  might  actually  be  accomplished.  The  publication 
of  its  Municipal  Program  marks  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
municipal  reform  in  the  United  States  and  has  exerted  a  pro- 
found influence  in  bringing  about  improved  conditions. 

With  opinion  organized,  concretely  expressed  in  large  part  in 
a  formal  document,  and  actual  progress  well  under  way  in  respect 
to  the  accomplishment  of  the  program  formulated,  the  problems 
of  municipal  reform  entered  upon  a  new  phase,  that  of  improv- 


W.  F.  WILLOUGHBY  211 

ing  municipal  administration  as  distinct  from  municipal  organiza- 
tion. I  think  that  I  need  have  no  hesitation  in  stating  that  to-day 
business  organization  and  administration  holds  the  field  formerly 
occupied  by  political  organization.  Fortunately  this  change  coin- 
cided with  and  indeed  constituted  a  part  of  the  great  general 
movement  that  is  now  in  full  swing,  as  regards  both  public  and 
private  corporations,  for  the  reorganization  of  methods  of  ad- 
ministration with  the  view  to  putting  the  practical  conduct  of 
affairs  upon  a  more  economical,  efficient  and  honest  basis.  Here 
too  the  stage  of  discussion  of  general  principles  has  been  passed, 
and  the  task  that  actually  confronts  those  interested  in  the  im- 
provement of  municipal  government  is  that  of  devising  the  ways 
and  means  by  which  the  ends  all  agree  are  desirable  may  be  best 
obtained. 

This  being  so,  the  writer  desires  to  bring  before  the  National 
Municipal  League  the  question  whether  the  time  is  not  now  op- 
portune when  the  League  should  undertake  the 
Need  of  Definite  same  vajuabie  work  jn  organizing  and  express- 
ing in  positive  form  the  best  thought  regarding 
the  business  organization  and  administration  of  municipalities 
that  ten  years  ago  it  performed  for  the  political  organization 
and  government  of  these  bodies.  The  subject  is  not  merely 
one  of  importance.  It  is  vital  in  that  the  movement  for  muni- 
cipal reform  has  reached  that  point  where  little  or  no  further 
progress  can  be  made  except  as  action  in  this  field  is  taken. 
Furthermore,  efforts  are  now  being  made  on  a  large  scale  in  this 
direction.  All  of  the  members  of  the  League  are  familiar  with 
the  exceedingly  valuable  work  that  has  been  and  is  being  done 
by  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  in  New  York  and  kindred 
bodies  in  other  cities,  by  the  Merriam  Commission  in  Chicago, 
the  Finance  Committee  in  Boston,  not  to  speak  of  the  work  done 
directly  by  the  finance  and  other  departments  of  a  large  number" 
of  cities.  The  city  of  Milwaukee  is  the  latest  municipality  to 
attack  this  problem.  It  has  employed  a  corps  of  experts  who 
have  the  duty  not  merely  of  recommending  but  of  assisting  in 
the  practical  installation  of  the  best  methods  of  administration 
that  they  can  devise.  Among  the  points  to  which  special  atten- 
tion will  be  directed  is  that  of  providing  a  system  by  which, 


212     FINANCIAL  AND  PHYSICAL  STATISTICS  OF  CITIES 

through  the  correlation  of  the  financial  and  physical  statistics  of 
the  city,  cost  measured  by  proper  units  may  be  determined.  The 
technical  associations  such  as  the  American  Water  Works  Asso- 
ciation, the  Association  of  Municipal  Electricians,  etc.,  are  also 
paying  more  and  more  attention  to  the  problems  here  presented. 
Finally  should  be  mentioned  the  monumental  task  of  examining 
into  all  of  the  detailed  methods  employed  by  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment in  the  administration  of  all  of  the  services  coming  under 
its  jurisdiction  with  a  view  to  adopting  improved  methods  that 
is  now  under  way.  That  the  Bureau  of  the  Census  desires  to  do 
what  it  can  in  this  same  field  needs  hardly  to  be  mentioned. 

At  present  each  of  these  bodies  is  working  independently  of 
the  others ;  only  in  a  casual  way  can  they  profit  by  the  work  of 
each  other.  No  efforts  are  being  made  to  correlate  their  activities. 
Nothing  is  consequently  being  done  in  the  way  of  attempting  lo 
work  out  methods  that  might  as  far  as  practicable  be  adopted 
generally  by  cities,  and  administrative  practices  and  procedure 
thus  be  standardized.  It  is  impossible  to  state  how  far  such 
action  is  feasible,  but  it  would  certainly  appear  that  as  regards 
the  features  to  which  this  paper  specially  relates — the  correlation 
of  financial  and  physical  statistics  and  the  working  out  of  elements 
of  cost  expressed  in  proper  units,  uniformity  of  practice  should 
prevail. 

To  the  writer  of  this  paper  it  thus  seems  that  the  one  step  now 
most  urgently  demanded  is  that  of  the  establishment  of  means  by 
which  all  of  the  persons  actively  concerned  or  interested  in  this 
work  might  be  brought  together  in  order  that,  on  the  one  hand, 
they  might  compare  notes  and  avail  themselves  of  the  studies 
and  experience  of  each  other,  and,  on  the  other,  strive  to  agree 
upon  and  definitely  formulate  principles,  practices  and  procedure 
that  should  find  expression  in  the  business  organization  and  ad- 
ministration of  all  cities  desiring  to  conduct  their  affairs  upon  the 
most  efficient  and  economical  basis  possible.  Is  there  any  body 
which  more  logically  should  assume  the  responsibility  for  in- 
augurating such  a  movement  and  have  general  direction  over  it 
when  once  in  existence  than  the  National  Municipal  League? 

If  the  idea  here  expressed  is  favorably  received  the  members 
of  the  league  should  recognize  that  their  organization  is  under- 


W.  F.  WILLOUGHBY  213 

taking  no  light  task.  A  managing  committee,  in  which  each  of 
the  important  bodies  and  cities  actively  interested  in  the  work 
should  have  representation  would  have  to  be  created.  This  com- 
mittee would  have  to  hold  meetings  with  more  or  less  frequency, 
perform  a  large  amount  of  work  in  the  way  of  prosecuting 
studies,  assembling  documents,  comparing  methods,  drafting  re- 
ports, forms  and  regulations,  etc.  It  would  be  very  desirable  that 
it  should  be  in  a  position  to  employ  specialists  and  experts  from 
time  to  time  as  one  branch  of  municipal  administration  after 
another  is  taken  up  for  consideration  and  report.  The  expenses 
incurred  by  the  members  of  the  committee  in  attending  the  meet- 
ings of  that  body  should  be  met  as  well  as  those  for  clerical  as- 
sistance and  supplies.  If  the  work  is  properly  done  a  very  con- 
siderable sum  of  money,  running  into  the  thousands  of  dollars, 
will  be  required.  In  view  of  the  readiness  with  which  public- 
spirited  persons  have  responded  in  the  financing  of  the  work  of 
Bureaus  of  Municipal  Research  and  other  similar  undertakings 
there  ought  not,  however,  to  be  much  trouble  in  meeting  this  re- 
quirement. As  long  as  tangible  results  of  value  can  be  de- 
finitely promised  and  exhibited  the  money  for  continuing  the 
work  will  be  forthcoming. 

It  may  seem  that  I  have  wandered  rather  far  afield  in  broach- 
ing and  devoting  so  much  attention  to  this  subject.  In  point  of 
fact,  however,  I  am  doubly  justified  in  doing  so,  first  because  no 
proper  correlation  of  financial  and  physical  statistics  can  be  had 
until  in  some  way  the  cities  have  radically  improved  their  present 
methods  of  administration  and  record  keeping  and,  secondly, 
because  in  the  same  way  the  Bureau  of  the  Census  can  only  hope 
to  improve  to  any  great  extent  its  present  reports  on  statistics 
of  cities  by  having  the  cities  themselves  improve  their  methods  of 
bookkeeping  and  administration,  and  reduce  them  as  far  as  pos- 
sible to  a  common  basis. 


Budgets  and   Balance  Sheets. 

The  Practical  Application  of   Sound  Accounting  Principles  and 
Methods  to  Municipal  Book-Keeping 

By   HARVEY  S.  CHASE, 

Certified  Public  Accountant,  Boston,  Mass. 

If  we  look  through  the  proceedings  of  the  League  for  the  past 
ten  years,  we  shall  find  many  papers  and  discussions  upon  ques- 
tions related  to  municipal  accounting.    If  these 

Historic  are  note(j  carefully  from  year  to  year,  it  will  be 

Documents  ,  '      ,      J  J. 

found  that  there  has  been  a  steady  progression 

from  the  original  and  somewhat  crude  classification,  which  ap- 
pears in  the  earlier  volumes,  down  through  the  development  of 
the  past  ten  or  twelve  years,  until  we  have  to-day  the  standard- 
ized classifications  which  are  applied  throughout  the  country 
by  the  United  States  Census  Bureau.  These  standards  have  been 
adopted,  so  far  as  the  laws  permit,  by  the  various  States  which 
have  uniform  municipal  accounting  bureaus;  these  States  being 
Ohio,  Massachusetts,  New  York,  Indiana,  and  various  others. 
I  bring  to  your  attention  a  well-thumbed  copy  of  the  City  Au- 
ditor's report  for  the  year  1900  of  the  City  of  Newton,  Mass.,  in 
which  appeared  for  the  first  time  in  this  country  a  "  uniform  " 
classification  of  municipal  accounts.  This  document  is  now  his- 
toric and  in  it  is  given  full  recognition  of  the  National  Municipal 
League's  efforts  to  establish  a  standard,  to  which  all  the  cities 
of  the  country  could  conform  ultimately.  These  efforts  were 
then  being  put  forth  by  the  League's  committee  upon  "  Uniform 
Municipal  Reports  and  Accounts."  Continuing  our  examination 
of  the  League's  proceedings,  it  will  be  noted  further  that  most, 
if  not  all,  of  the  papers  heretofore  given  before  the  League  on 
this  subject  have  been  devoted  to  the  classification  of  appropria- 
tions and  sub-appropriations  authorizing  municipal  expenditure. 
I  wish  in  the  present  paper  to  go  a  considerable  step  beyond 
these  questions,  and  point  out  what  seems  to  me,  after  long 
experience  in  municipalities  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  to 

(214) 


HARVEY  S.  CHASE  ai$ 

be  a  fundamental  necessity  in  the  installation  of  sound  account- 
ing systems  in  our  municipalities,  including  both  cities  and  towns. 
This  essential  feature  which  I  wish  to  bring  to  your  attention 
to-day  is  a  counterpart  of  what  is  fundamental  in  all  classes  of 
commercial  accounting,  although  the  aim  of  and  therefore  the 
requirements  upon  commercial  accounting  systems  differ  in  im- 
portant particulars  from  those  of  municipal  accounting.  These 
differences  have  been  enlarged  upon  many  times  by  city  comp- 
trollers and  others,  and  I  will  not  attempt  to  emphasize  them 
here. 

On  the  contrary,  I  desire  in  this  paper  to  emphasize  the  like- 
ness, in  certain  fundamental  aims,  of  both  municipal  and  com- 
mercial systems  of  accounting.  You  are  familiar  with  the  prim- 
ary distinctions  of  commercial  accounts,  "capital"  and  "revenue" ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  distinctions  between  those  classes  of  accounts 
which  have  to  do  with  "  assets  and  liabilities  "  and  those  classes 
of  accounts  which  have  to  do  with  "  income  and  outgo."  The  one 
represents  properties,  actual  cash,  and  securities  belonging  to  the 
organization,  together  with  the  debts  owed  by  the  organization, 
as  well  as  its  capital  stock  liabilities.  The  other  relates  to  earn- 
ings which  have  come  in  during  a  certain  period  or  have  accrued 
during  that  period,  together  with  expenses  which  have  been  paid 
out  during  that  period  or  have  been  incurred  during  the  same 
period. 

It  has  been  said  frequently  by  persons  actually  engaged  in 
governmental  accounting  that  the  likeness  which  I  am  en- 
deavoring to  demonstrate  to  you  does  not  exist, 
api  a  an  jn  £act^  tQ  quote  ^g  wor(js  in  a  recent  address 

by  a  certified  public  accountant  familiar  with  or- 
dinary methods  of  governmental  accounting,  such  a  relation- 
ship ought  not  to  be  considered  at  all!  This  gentleman  said, 
"  the  considerations  of  '  capital '  and  '  revenue  '  which  character- 
ize the  accounts  of  all  private  undertakings  are  conspicuously  ab- 
sent in  the  accounts  of  cities,  and  in  fact  in  all  public  accounts, 
and  accordingly  neither  the  '  balance  sheet '  as  commercially 
understood  nor  its  inseparable  companion,  the  '  profit  and  loss  ' 
account,  finds  any  place  in  the  reports  of  public  finances." 
I  wish  to  make  immediate  and  emphatic  objection  to  this  state- 


21 6        BUDGETS  AND  BALANCE  SHEETS 

ment.  My  experience  among  cities  both  large  and  small  and  in 
various  parts  of  the  United  States  during  the  last  fifteen  years 
has  led  me  to  certain  conclusions  from  which  I  find  myself 
unable  to  escape,  and  one  of  these  conclusions  bears  very  closely 
upon  this  matter  of  "  capital "  and  "  revenue  "  in  municipal  ac- 
counts. In  fact,  it  appears  to  me  that  we  do  have,  and  must 
necessarily  have,  in  city  affairs  the  same  distinction  in  classes 
of  accounts  which  are  represented  by  the  titles  "  capital "  and 
"  revenue  "  in  commercial  affairs.  It  will  be  found  impractical 
to  install  sound  accounting  methods  in  municipalities,  in  my 
opinion,  unless  these  distinctions  are  recognized,  whatever  be 
the  titles  given  to  these  different  classes  of  accounts.  The  word 
"  capital "  is  not  a  satisfactory  term  to  apply  to  municipal  ac- 
counts. For  this  reason  I  have  coined  and  used  the  word  "  non- 
revenue."  The  term  "  revenue,"  however,  and  "  revenue  ac- 
count," used  in  very  much  the  same  sense  as  a  "  profit  and  loss  " 
account  is  used  in  commercial  affairs,  is  one  of  the  most  essen- 
tial features  of  a  proper  installation  of  sound  methods  of  ac- 
counting in  cities.  Of  this  I  am  fully  convinced,  and  for  this  rea- 
son :  As  the  authority  I  have  quoted  says,  "  The  question  of  'gain' 
or  '  profit '  finds  no  proper  place  in  municipal  accounts."  This  is 

true  but  the  question  of  surplus  or  deficiency 
Surplus  or  £  •  ,•     , 

D  /.  of  revenue  is  an  exceedingly  important  item  in 

such  accounts.  This  question,  Whether  or  not 
the  revenue  pertaining  to  the  fiscal  period  is  in  excess  of  the  ex- 
penditure which  that  revenue  is  supposed  to  meet,  is  one  of  the 
fundamental  questions  which  a  proper  system  of  accounts  in  a 
municipality  should  exhibit,  and  should  exhibit  so  clearly  as  to 
be  without  question.  The  corollary  of  this  statement  is  evident. 
If  the  current  revenue  has  not  provided  for  the  current  running 
expenses  of  the  city,  then  borrowed  money  must  be  used  to  supply 
this  deficiency,  and  such  borrowed  money  can  be  liquidated  only 
out  of  future  revenues.  Thereby  such  deficiencies  of  the  present 
become  unwarrantable  burdens  upon  the  taxpayers  of  the  future. 
I  have  examined  city  after  city  in  which,  owing  to  the  crude 
methods  of  accounting  in  vogue,  the  municipal  officers  year  after 
year  permitted  the  expenditures  to  exceed  the  revenues  avail- 
able, and  thereby  municipal  debts  have  piled  up.  These  debts, 


HARVEY  S.  CHASE  217 

being  complicated  by  and  mixed  with  other  debts  which  have 
been  issued  for  public  improvements  and  similar  purposes,  have 
been  almost  inextricably  confused  in  the  accounts,  and  it  has 
been  beyond  the  capacity  of  the  officers  to  determine  whether, 
or  by  how  much,  the  city  was  running  behindhand  annually.  In 
fact,  as  may  be  readily  imagined,  a  considerable  number  of  muni- 
cipal office-holders  do  not  sincerely  desire  that  the  public  shall 
know  how  much  to  the  bad  their  expenditure  is  carrying  the 
city.  They  prefer  that  the  finances  of  the  city  should  run  along 
as  best  they  may  until  their  own  terms  of  office  have  expired. 
"  After  us,  the  deluge,"  is  too  frequently  the  motto  of  political 
office-holders. 

Even  if  these  officials  are  honest,  and  do  desire  to  exhibit  the 
actual  conditions  to  the  public,  they  find  themselves  handicapped 
by  unsound  methods  of  accounting  based  on  mere  cash  accounts, 
which,  under  provisions  of  law,  are  the  prevailing  methods  of 
accounting  in  municipalities  to-day. 

With  laws  and  legal  requirements  we  must  of  course  comply, 
but,  wherever  these  requirements  are  not  in  accord  with  sound 
accounting  principles,  it  is  evident  to  us,  as  professional  ac- 
countants, that  in  due  time  these  laws  must  be  changed.  We 
should  look  at  these  matters  from  a  point  of  view  which  will  give 
us  a  broad  survey  of  the  whole  field  of  municipal  necessities. 
Laws  are  by  no  means  perfect,  and  they  are  especially  deficient 
along  accounting  lines  for  the  reason  that,  in  general,  laws  are 
drawn  and  are  amended  by  members  of  the  legal  profession  who, 
as  a  rule,  have  little  knowledge  of  and  less  patience  with  ac- 
counting requirements.  We  cannot  avoid  recognizing  the  fact 
that,  as  accountants,  we  must  insist,  always,  of  course,  with 
tact  and  patience,  and  must  continuously  insist  that  the  statutes 
shall  recognize  accounting  requirements  and  that  from  time  to 
time  they  must  be  changed  by  amendment  and  repeal  until  sound 
accounting  principles  shall  be  matters  of  law  as  well  as  matters 
of  necessary  business  procedure. 

My  experience  in  city  after  city  has  led  me  step  by  step  to  con- 
clusions which  I  am  endeavoring  to  place  before  you  to-day,  and, 
in  order  that  we  may  start  properly  and  that  you  may  get  a  cor- 
rect understanding  as  to  what  I  mean  by  "  revenue "  accounts 


218  BUDGETS  AND  BALANCE  SHEETS 

and  their  application  in  municipal  book-keeping,  I  will  now  refer 
to  the  large  charts  here  upon  the  wall. 

These  charts  have  been  prepared  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating 
on  a  scale  comparable  with  the  revenue  expenditures  of  a  city 
like  New  York  the  entries  necessary  to  establish  proper  methods 
of  revenue  accounting  in  the  books.  In  order  not  to  complicate 

the  matter,  which  is  sufficiently  complicated  at 
Explanation  of      best    Qnl     those  entries  haye  been  ^5^^ 

Schedules  '        J 

which  are  fundamentally  necessary  in  order  to 

establish  the  simplest  form  of  a  monthly  balance  sheet  The 
amounts  set  forth  on  the  charts  correspond  closely  enough  to  the 
actual  expenditures  of  the  city  of  New  York  in  a  recent  fiscal 
year,  but  no  emphasis  whatever  should  be  laid  upon  these  figures 
or  any  of  them.  I  wish  to  lay  stress  solely  upon  the  form  and 
the  methods  of  making  the  entries  and  the  corresponding  ledger 
accounts  which  are  thereby  set  up  in  books  and  which  give 
automatically  a  correct  balance  sheet  at  the  end  of  each  fiscal 
period  simply  by  taking  off  a  trial  balance  of  the  general  ledger. 

Schedule  I  is  a  title-page  merely. 

Schedule  2  exhibits  a  journal  entry  debiting  "Revenue  Account 
1910  "  and  crediting  "  Appropriations  Account  1910  "  with  $130,- 
000,000.00,  representing  the  expenditures  authorized  to  be  made 
from  taxes  and  all  other  revenues  during  the  fiscal  year.  This 
journal  entry  is  given  in  detail  under  the  standard  classification 
established  by  the  Bureau  of  the  Census,  and  applied  by  it  to  the 
annual  reports  of  all  cities  throughout  the  country  as  published 
in  the  Census  bulletins.  These  detailed  appropriations  will  be 
set  up  in  a  subsidiary  ledger,  appropriation  ledger ;  and  this  sub- 
sidiary ledger  will  be  controlled  by  the  "Appropriations  1910 
Account "  in  the  general  ledger. 


HARVEY  S.  CHASE 


SCHEDULE  2. 

Journal. 
January  i,  1910. 

Annual  budget  for  the  year  1910.  Estimated  by  the  Board  of  Estimate 
and  Apportionment  and  passed  by  the  Board  of  Aldermen.  Required  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  conducting  the  public  business  for  the  ensuing  year. 


Revenue  account  1910 

To  appropriations  1910,  viz.: 
General  government. 

Mayorality    

Board  of  aldermen  and  city  clerk 

Department  of  finance 

Etc.,  etc 

Protection  of  life  and  property : 

Police  department 

Fire  department 

Etc.,  etc 

Health  and  sanitation : 

Department  of  health 

Etc.,  etc 

Department  of  street  cleaning 

Bureau  of  sewers 

Etc.,  etc 

Highways: 

Department  of  bridges 

Bureau  of  highways 

Etc.,  etc 

Charities  and  corrections: 

Charitable  institutions 

Department  of  public  charities 

Department  of  correction 

Etc.,  etc 

Education : 

Department  of  education 

College  of  the  city  of  New  York 

Etc.,  etc 

Recreation : 

Department  of  parks 

Etc.,  etc 

Miscellaneous : 

Etc.,  etc 

Municipal  industries: 

Department  of  water  supply,  gas  and 

electricity    

Municipal  indebtedness: 

Interest  on  the  city  debt 

Redemption  of  the  city  debt 

Instalment  payable 


$130,000,000.00 


175,000.00 

240,000.00 

1,300,000.00 

200,000.00 

15,000,000.00 
7,200,000.00 
2,500,000.00 

2,100,000.00 

1,200,000.00 

6,900,000.00 

150,000.00 

500,000.00 

600,000.00 

650,000.00 

2,300,000.00 

4,000,000.00 
2,400,000.00 
1,300,000.00 
2,000,000.00 

30,000,000.00 
500,000.00 
750,000.00 

3,000,000.00 
400,000.00 

935,000.00 


6,000,000.00 

23,000,000.00 
9,000,000.00 
5,800,000.00 

1130,000,000.00 


22O 


BUDGETS  AND  BALANCE  SHEETS 


Schedule  3.  The  accounts  in  the  general  ledger  are  exhibited  as  they 
would  appear  after  the  journal  entry  on  Schedule  2  has  been  posted. 
There  is  also  given  as  an  illustration  of  the  subsidiary  "  appropriations " 
ledger  one  account — Mayoralty. 

SCHEDULE  3. 

General  Ledger. 

REVENUE  ACCOUNT  1910. 


1910 

Jan.  I 

To  appropria- 

tions 1910 

J 

130,000,000.00 

APPROPRIATIONS,  1910. 


1910 

Jan.  I 

Appro- 

priations 

for  the 

year 

J 

130,000,000.00 

Appropriations  Ledger. 

(Subsidiary.) 
MAYORALTY  (as  illustration). 


1910 

Jan.  I 

Appro- 

priation 

J 

75,000.00 

Schedule  4  exhibits  a  journal  entry  establishing  the  credit  to  "  revenue 
account  1910"  and  setting  up  on  the  other  side  as  an  asset  the  tax  levy 
of  1910  and  the  "  estimated  other  revenue  "  as  established  by  the  budget- 
making  body.  There  is  further  established  by  credit  entry  a  "  reserve  for 
abatements  "  account.  A  reserve  account  of  this  nature  is  fundamentally 
necessary  in  municipal  bookkeeping,  in  order  that  provision  may  be  made 
for  abatements  of  taxes  and  other  losses  of  taxes  which  always  occur  in 
municipal  finances.  If  such  abatements  and  losses  are  not  properly  pro- 
Tided  for  by  the  tax  levy  itself,  they  must  be  made  up  by  additional  bor- 
rowings, which  must  become  burdens  upon  the  revenues  and  tax-payert 
of  the  future. 


HARVEY  S.  CHASE 


221 


SCHEDULE  4. 

Journal. 
CREDIT  TO  REVENUE  FROM  TAX  LEVY  AND  OTHER  RECEIPTS  TO  BE  COLLECTED. 


Tax  levy  of  1910 

Estimated  other  revenue , 

To  revenue  account  1910 

To  reserve  for  abatements  (overlay) . 


$i  10,250,000.00 
30,000,000.00 


$135,000,000.00 
5,250,000.00 


Schedule  5  shows  the  condition  of  the  general  ledger  accounts  after 
this  journal  entry.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  "  Revenue  Account  1910 " 
now  stands  with  a  credit  balance  of  $5,000,000.00. 

SCHEDULE  5. 

General  Ledger. 

TAX  LEVY  OF  1910. 


1910 

Jan.  I 

Tax  levy  of 

1910 

J 

1  10,250,000.00 

ESTIMATED  OTHER  REVENUE  1910. 


1910 
Jan.  I 


30,000,000.00 


REVENUE  ACCOUNT  1910. 


1910 

1910 

Jan.  I 

To  Appropria- 

Jan. I 

Taxes 

tions  1910 

J 

130,000,000.00 

levied 

J 

105,000,000.00 

Estimated 

other 

revenue 

30,000,000.00 

RESERVE  FOR  ABATEMENTS  (overlay). 


1910 

Jan.  I 

Taxes 

levied 

T 

5,*5o,ooo.oo 

222 


BUDGETS  AND  BALANCE  SHEETS 


Schedule  6  exhibits  a  monthly  warrant  for  the  expenditures  under  all  of 
the  appropriations  from  revenue.  The  total  amount  is  charged  to  "  Ap- 
propriations Account  1910  "  and  credited  to  "  Audited  Vouchers  Payable  " 
or  to  "  Warrants  Registered,"  or  whatever  the  title  of  the  liability  ac- 
count may  be. 


SCHEDULE  6. 

January  31,  jp/o. 

MONTHLY  WARRANT  FOR  THE  EXPENDITURES  OF  CURRENT  MONTH. 


Appropriations,  viz. : 
General  government: 

Mayoralty  appropriations 

Board  of  aldermen  and  city  clerk. . . . 

Department  of  finance 

Etc.,  etc  

Protection  of  life  and  property : 

Police  department 

Fire  department 

Etc.,  etc 

Health  and  sanitation : 

Department  of  health 

Etc.,  etc 

Department  of  street  cleaning 

Bureau  of  sewers 

Etc.,  etc 

Highways : 

Department  of  bridges 

Bureau  of  highways 

Etc,  etc 

Charities  and  corrections : 

Charitable  institutions 

Department  of  public  charities 

Department  of  correction 

Etc.,  etc 

Education : 

Department  of  education 

College  of  the  city  of  New  York 

Etc.,  etc 

Recreation : 

Department  of  parks 

Etc.,  etc 

Municipal  industries: 

Department  of  water  supply,  gas  and 
electricity 

Etc.,  etc 

Municipal  indebtedness : 

Interest  on  the  city  debt 

Redemption  of  the  city  debt 

Instalment  payable 

Etc.,  etc 


To  audited  Touchers  payable  (or 
warrants  registered) 


$8,398.42 

19,457-39 

140,023.17 

12,452.72 

1,182,933.75 

794,110.98 

23,182.72 

183,731.44 
43,079.21 

508,499.62 

12,402.71 

9,664.37 

46,982.42 
49,484.11 
17,015.48 

518,972.48 

287,441.82 

145,732.45 

18,941.63 

2,893,487.32 
42,347.84 
39,745-29 

306,721.42 
16,237.87 


482,732.14 
29,205.99 

2,434,182.18 

742,842.83 

400,000.00 

14,102.05 


$11,424,111.82 


511,424,111.82 


HARVEY  S.  CHASE 


223 


Schedule  7  shows  once  more  the  condition  of  the  general  ledger  ac- 
counts after  this  entry. 

SCHEDULE  7. 
General  Ledger. 
APPROPRIATIONS. 


1910 


1910 

Warrant  for 

11,424,111.82 

Appropriations 

January 

I 

for  year 

130,000,000.00 

AUDITED  VOUCHERS  PAYABLE  (OR  WARRANTS  REGISTERED). 


1910 


January  War- 
rant 


11424,111.82 


Appropriations  Ledger. 
MAYORALTY. 


1910 

! 

Warrant  for  , 

1910 

January 

Balance 

i 

i 

8,398.42 
66,601.58 

Appropriation 
Balance 

75,000.00 

75,000.00 

75,000.00 

66,601.58 

Schedule  8.  A  series  of  journal  entries  relating  to  cash.  For  simplicity 
these  entries  are  made  by  the  journal  instead  of  being  entered,  as  they 
would  be  in  practice,  through  the  cash-book  directly.  Cash  is  charged  with 
collections  on  account  of  tax  levy  and  is  also  charged  with  collections  on 
account  of  other  revenues  (licenses,  fees,  etc.,  etc.).  Again,  for  simplicity, 
no  cash  balance  at  the  beginning  of  the  period  is  set  up  in  these  accounts, 
although  of  course  there  would  be,  naturally,  various  classes  of  cash  bal- 
ances at  the  beginning  of  the  period. 

On  Schedule  8  also  "  Audited  Vouchers  Payable "  account  is  charged 
and  cash  is  credited  with  the  actual  payments  of  warrants  or  bills  and 
pay-rolls  made  by  the  treasurer's  or  chamberlain's  office  during  the  month. 
Further,  we  suppose  that  various  taxes  have  been  abated,  and  "  Reserve 
for  Abatements "  is  charged,  and  the  tax  levy  credited  with  those  items 
which  have  been  allowed  by  the  proper  officers  in  accordance  with  the  re- 
quirements of  law. 


224 


BUDGETS  AND  BALANCE  SHEETS 

SCHEDULE  8. 

Journal. 
CASH  RECEIPTS  FOR  MONTH. 


Cash  

4i8  762  doi  ii 

fi  1  8.762.4.0  1.  11 

Cash  

82.4.80.472.28 

t2ui8Q.d72.28 

<Q  887  061;  72 

To  Cash  

So.887.o6c;.  72 

Payments  of  Warrants,  or  Audited  Bills  and 

£806  IAI  21 

$806.747.  21 

Taxes  Abated  . 

Schedule  p  sets  forth  the  condition  of  the  ledger  accounts  after  these 
entries  have  been  made. 


SCHEDULE  9. 

General  Ledger. 
CASH. 

Receipts 
« 

Balance 

18,762,491.31 
2,489,472.28 

Payments 
Balance 

9,887,065.72 
11364,89737 

21,251,963.59 

21,251,963.59 

11,364,897.87 

VOUCHERS  PAYABLE. 


Cash 
Balance 

9,887,065.72 
JJ37>046''o 

January  War- 
rant 

Balance 

11,424,111.82 

11,424,111.82 

11,424,111.82 

1,537,046.10 

HARVEY  S.  CHASE 
TAX  LEVY  1910. 


ESTIMATED  OTHER  REVENUE. 


RESERVE  FOR  ABATEMENTS  (overlays). 


225 


Tax  Levy  1910 

1  10,250,000.00 

Cash 
Abatements 
Balance 

18,762,491.31 
896,743.21 
90,590,763.48 

1  10,250,000.00 

1  10,250,000.00 

Balance 

90,590^6548 

Balance 

30,000,000.00 

Cash 
Balance 

2489,472.28 
27,^0327.72 

30,000,000.00 

30,000,000.00 

27,5  10,527.72 

Abatements 
Balance 

\ 
896,743.21 
4^353^5^79 

• 

Tax  Levy 
Balance 

5,250,000.00 

5,250,000.00 

5,250,000.00 

"4,353.256.79 

Schedule  10  exhibits  an  entry  illustrating  what  is  frequently  done  in 
municipalities  throughout  the  country,  although  it  is  opposed  to  all  consid- 
erations of  sound  accounting  and  should  be  prohibited  by  law.  Such  action 
is  prohibited  by  law  in  various  cities,  and  such  action  could  not  be  taken 
in  the  city  of  New  York.  This  is1,  'however,  the  essential  point  which  I 
desire  to  bring  out,  and  therefore  this  entry  has  been  made  as  set  forth. 


Revenue  Account  1910  . . . 
To  Appropriations  1910. 


SCHEDULE  10. 
Journal. 


$10,000,000.00 


$10,000,000.00 


Additional  appropriations  made  subsequent  to  original  levy.  Not  pro- 
vided from  any  specific  source — "  Money  in  the  Treasury  not  otherwise 
appropriated,"  or  other  phrase  of  this  nature  having  been  used  in  the 
order,  or  no  phrase  at  all — no  provision  of  revenue  at  all — frequently. 


226 


BUDGETS  AND  BALANCE  SHEETS 


General  Ledger. 
REVENUE  ACCOUNT  1910. 


Appropriations 

130,000,000.00 

Taxes  levied 

105,000,000.00 

Additional  Ap- 

.      •              i 

Estimated 

propriations 

10,000,000.00 

Other  Rev- 

enue 

30,000,000.00 

Balana 

5^000,000.00 

140,000,000.00 

140,000,000.00 

Balance 

• 

5,000,000.00 

APPROPRIATIONS  1910. 


Warrant  for 
January 
Balance 

11,424,111.82 
128^5,888.18 

Appropriations 
Additional  Ap- 
propriations 

130,000,000.00 
10,000,000.00 

140,000,000.00 

140,000,000.00 

'     •  > 

Balance 

128,575,888.18 

Schedule  n  exhibits  the  totals  of  the  debit  and  the  credit  entries  in  each 
of  the  ledger  accounts,  and  also  exhibits  a  trial  balance  or  balance  sheet 
of  the  accounts  as  they  stand  on  the  general  ledger  after  the  entries  above 
set  forth  have  been  made.  The  "  deficiency  of  revenue,"  $5,000,000.00,  is 
exhibited  on  this  trial  balance. 

SCHEDULE  n. 
TOTAL  FOOTINGS  OF  LEDGER  ACCOUNTS. 


Cash 

Tax  levy  1910 • 

Estimated  other  revenue 

Vouchers  payable 

Appropriation  balances  unexpended 

Reserve  for  abatements 

Revenue  account  1910 


Debit. 

$21,251,963.59 

110,250,000.00 

30,000,000.00 

9,887,065.72 

11,424,181.82 

896,74321 

140.000,000.00 


Credit. 
$9,887,065.72 

19.659,234-52 

2,489.472.28 

11,424,111.82 

140,000,000.00 

5,250,000.00 

135,000,000.00 


HARVEY  S.  CHASE 
TRIAL  BALANCE. 


227 


Cash 

Tax  levy  1910 

Estimated  other  revenue 

Vouchers  payable 

Appropriation  balances  unexpended 

Reserve  for  abatements 

Revenue  account  1910  (deficiency) . 


#11,364,897.87 
90,590,765.48 
27,510,527.72 


5,000,000.00 


£134,466,191.07 


$1,537,046.10 
128,575,888.18 


#134,466,191.07 


COMMENTS. 

Frequently,  in  cities  of  moderate  size,  and  even  in  cities  of 
large  size,  appropriations  are  made  without  proper  provisions  for 
new  sources  or  revenues  to  meet  the  expenditures  under  such 
appropriations.  We  desire  to  make  evident  in  these  charts  the 
necessary  result  of  such  action  by  city  councils  or  other  appro- 
priating bodies.  Hence  this  journal  entry,  which  supposes  that 
the  appropriating  body  in  this  case  has  made  additional  appro- 
priations to  the  extent  of  $10,000,000.00,  without  providing  ad- 
ditional revenue  therefor.  The  journal  entry  would  then  be  "reve- 
nue account  1910  "  debited  with  $10,000,000.00,  "  appropriations 
account  1910  "  credited  with  $10,000,000.00. 

The  condition  of  the  general  ledger  accounts  is  shown  lower 
down  on  Schedule  10,  and  it  is  seen  that  by  this  entry  the  "  reve- 
nus  account  1910,"  which  prior  to  this  entry  had  a  credit  balance 
of  $5,000,000.00,  now  has  a  debit  or  "  deficiency  "  balance  of  $5,- 
000,000.00. 

This  is  the  point  that  I  wish  particularly  to  emphasize.  It  is 
the  fact  that  in  a  very  large  number  of  our  cities  in  all  parts  of 
the  country  action  is  frequently  taken  by  appropriating  bodies 
similar  to  that  set  forth  above.  The  methods  of  accounting  here- 
tofore in  vogue,  however,  do  not  exhibit  the  deficiencies  of  reve- 
nue thereby  created.  My  point  is  that  the  accounts  should  ex- 
hibit such  deficiencies  automatically  and  promptly,  so  that  proper 
remedial  action  may  be  taken  by  the  municipal  government  and 
further  unsound  financing  be  avoided.  The  importance  of  this 
matter  can  scarcely  be  exaggerated.  The  lack  of  such  exhibits 
is  the  reason,  in  my  opinion,  for  the  extension  of  municipal  debts 


228        BUDGETS  AND  BALANCE  SHEETS 

which  has  been  going  on  in  most  of  our  cities  far  beyond  the 
amount  represented  by  public  improvements,  or  other  additions  to 
the  properties  (fixed  assets)  of  the  city.  This  deficiency  of  reve- 
nue demonstrates  that  the  accounts  of  every  municipality  should 
be  so  devised  that  deficiencies  of  this  nature  should  be  shown  auto- 
matically and  without  concealment.  This  is  the  argument  which 
has  caused  me  to  have  these  charts  prepared  and  to  make  this 
statement  to  you. 

The  importance  of  this  matter  is  well  shown  in  the  city  au- 
ditor's printed  statement  of  the  city  of  Lynn,  Mass.,  of  which  you 

now  have  copies.    Turning  to  the  first  page  of 
M1Ce        ^at  statement»  m  tne  upper  left-hand  corner  in 

the  current  assets,  you  will  note  the  deficiencies 
of  various  years  set  forth.  You  will  please  note  that  the  defi- 
ciency of  revenue  1908  is  stated  as  $78,386.21,  while  the  de- 
ficiency of  revenue  1909  is  given  as  $8,692.18.  There  is  a  dif- 
ference between  these  two  deficiencies  of  $70,000.00,  which 
means  that  $70,000.00  less  of  borrowed  money  from  long-term 
bonds  was  expended  for  running  expenses  in  the  year  1909  than 
was  expended  in  the  year  1908.  The  only  reason  why  as  much  or 
more  money  was  not  expended  in  1909  arises  from  the  fact  that 
in  the  latter  year  these  printed  balance  sheets  were  presented  to 
the  city  council  monthly,  and  these  prospective  deficiencies  were 
clearly  evident,  whereas  in  the  year  1908,  before  the  new  methods 
of  accounting  were  installed,  there  was  nothing  in  the  monthly 
statements  which  could  exhibit  this  important  fact  to  the  city 
government.  Here  is  a  saving  of  $70,000.00  or  more  a  year  to 
future  taxpayers  in  the  city  of  Lynn,  which  would  undoubtedly 
have  been  an  additional  burden  upon  them,  had  it  not  been  for 
this  monthly  statement,  published  as  now  exhibited  to  you. 

It  will  be  noted  further  that  the  deficiency  of  revenue  1910 
(if  appropriations  are  fully  expended)  is  expected  to  be  $9,- 
772.21.  This  deficiency  has  been  caused  by  bonds  issued  for 
revenue  purposes  shown  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  account, 
amounting  to  $10,000.00.  The  deficiency  would  be  exactly  $10,- 
ooo.oo,  had  it  not  been  that  minor  revenues  have  come  in  during 
the  year  to  date,  which  diminish  the  deficiency  to  the  amount 
stated  in  the  balance  sheet 


HARVEY  S.  CHASE  229 

There  are  many  other  matters  in  this  Lynn  balance  sheet 
which  are  interesting,  and  perhaps  I  should  explain  to  you  in  the 
first  place,  turning  to  pages  2  and  3  of  the  statement,  that  the 
items  set  forth  upon  those  pages  are  accumulated  in  the  total 
set  down  in  the  lower  right-hand  corner  in  the  last  column  but 
one,  representing  the  balance  of  appropriations  not  yet  expended 
at  the  date  in  question,  September  3Oth.  The  item  $353,586.73 
on  page  2  is  made  up  of  all  the  complication  of  accounts  on  that 
page,  but  it  is  exhibited  in  the  balance  sheet  on  page  I  as  only 
one  of  the  many  items  of  liability.  In  addition  to  this  item  there 
are,  as  you  see,  a  large  number  of  other  liabilities  which  are  legal 
claims  against  the  corresponding  assets  on  the  other  side,  and  it 
is  only  when  all  of  these  liabilities  are  properly  set  upon  the  bal- 
ance sheet  in  this  way,  contrasted  with  the  available  current 
assets,  that  we  may  know  whether  or  not  there  are  deficiencies 
of  revenue  and  how  much  those  deficiencies  amount  to. 

I  think  you  will  see  clearly,  if  you  give  careful  attention  to 
this  division  of  the  balance  sheet,  the  fundamental  nature  of  the 
methods  of  accounting  which  I  have  described  and  the  reason  for 
the  insistence  which  professional  accountants  should  lay  upon 
such  an  installation  of  ledger  accounts  as  will  give,  without  pos- 
sibility of  concealment,  the  true  conditions  of  the  finances  of: 
every  municipality  at  least  as  often  as  once  a  month. 


The  Standardizing  of  Municipal  Accounts 
and  Statistics   in  Massachusetts. 

By  CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY,   BOSTON, 
Director,  Bureau  of  Statistics,  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  on  this  occasion  to  take  up  your  time 
with  a  review  in  detail  of  the  progress  of  the  movement  for  the 
standardizing  of  municipal  accounts  in  the 
State  Laws  United  States,  originating  as  it  did  with  this 

organization.  Merely  by  way  of  introduction,  however,  to  what 
I  have  to  present  with  regard  to  Massachusetts,  I  may  be  per- 
mitted to  recall  the  fact  that  Ohio  was  the  first  state  to  take 
comprehensive  action  toward  securing  uniformity  in  municipal 
accounts  and  reports  by  the  provisions  of  the  law  passed  in  1902 
establishing  a  bureau  for  the  inspection  and  supervision  of  the 
accounts  of  cities,  counties,  townships,  villages,  and  school  dis- 
tricts. Massachusetts  followed  in  1906  but  with  a  much  milder 
act,  involving  no  supervision  by  the  State  over  either  local 
finances  or  accounting  methods  and  providing  only  for  a  return  to 
the  Bureau  of  Statistics  by  the  accounting  officers  of  cities  and 
towns  of  a  statement  of  their  finances  upon  a  uniform  schedule 
to  be  supplied  by  the  Bureau.  Since  then  the  growth  of  the 
general  movement  throughout  the  country  for  reform  in  muni- 
cipal accounting  systems  has  been  noteworthy.  Indiana,  at  the 
session  of  her  legislature  in  1909,  adopted  an  act  following 
closely  the  Ohio  law  and  in  some  respects  perhaps  more  com- 
plete in  its  ramifications  and  requirements ;  and  New  York.  Iowa, 
Washington,  West  Virginia,  Wisconsin,  Rhode  Island,  and  pos- 
sibly other  states  have  enacted  legislation  embodying  either  modi- 
fications of  the  Ohio  law,  which  represents  the  extreme  type  of 
state  supervision  over  municipal  accounts,  or  the  less  drastic  fea- 
tures of  the  Massachusetts  plan. 

In  Massachusetts  we  are  still  very  strongly  influenced  by  tra- 
ditions of  local  self-government  which  have  grown  up  through 
generations  of  attachment  to  the  town  meeting,  and  anything 
which  savors  of  ostensible  state  supervision  over  local  affairs  is 

(230) 


CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY  231 

likely  to  be  viewed  with  considerable  jealousy,  perhaps  more  so 
than  in  the  newer  communities  of  the  region 

Massachusetts        beyond  the  Alleghenies  where  the  traditions  of 

Traditions 

the    oldest   commonwealths    date    back   as   yet 

scarcely  a  hundred  years.  The  Commonwealth  acted  upon  this 
theory  of  local  responsibility  when  it  undertook  to  work  out  a 
program  of  accounting  reform  for  its  cities  and  towns.  The 
state  does  not,  therefore,  under  the  present  law,  exercise  any 
supervision  or  control  over  either  municipal  accounts  or  financial 
methods,  being  thus  far  content  to  act  as  an  adviser  to  local 
officials  and  communities. 

It  may  be,  indeed,  that  we  shall  not  see  proper  accounting  re- 
form in  some  communities  in  Massachusetts  without  drastic 
legislation,  and  it  may  be  that  the  time  will  come  when  the  state 
will  see  fit  to  adopt  a  paternal  attitude  toward  its  cities  and  towns 
in  this  matter  and  require  them  to  submit  their  accounts  to  a  peri- 
odical state  audit  with  a  view  to  protecting  their  citizens  and  tax- 
payers from  the  inefficiency  of  their  own  locally-chosen  officials. 
But  the  immediate  prospect  is  that  we  shall  continue  for  the 
present  to  move  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance,  making  prog- 
ress year  by  year  and  step  by  step,  trying  to  avoid  friction  be- 
tween state  and  municipality,  and  cultivating  mutual  relations  of 
assistance  and  good  will.  This  opinion  is  substantiated  by  the 
attitude  of  our  last  legislature,  which  passed  an  act  upon  my 
recommendation,  giving  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  authority  to 
audit  the  accounts  of  municipalities  and  to  install  accounting 
systems  upon  petition  of  the  local  authorities,  the  cost  to  be 
assessed  back  upon  the  city  or  town.  Another  act  provided  for 
a  simple  but  comprehensive  method  of  handling  town  finances 
and  establishing  the  office  of  town  accountant  with  functions 
similar  to  the  auditor  in  cities ;  and  this  act  is  also  effective  only 
by  vote  of  the  town.  I  have  no  doubt  that  numerous  towns  will, 
of  their  own  accord  in  the  near  future,  vote  to  take  advantage 
of  this  legislation,  and  that  as  soon  as  its  benefits  become  manifest 
in  a  few  towns,  many  others  will  become  convinced  of  the  de- 
sirability of  following  their  example ;  and  the  Bureau  will  be  kept 
busy  for  some  time  to  come  in  responding  to  these  demands  for 
help,  without  being  sensibly  embarrassed  in  its  efforts  to  reform 


232 


ACCOUNTS  AND  STATISTICS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS 


accounting  systems  by  the  absence  of  such  elaborate  compulsory 
legislation  on  the  subject  as  has  been  passed  in  other  states. 
We  are,  in  this  matter,  in  the  forefront  of  a  great  movement 
which  is  gaining  headway  rapidly  and  whose  concrete  results  in  the 
form  of  the  statistical  information  it  will  furnish,  will,  ere  long, 
be  accepted  as  absolutely  necessary  to  that  efficient  administra- 
tion of  public  affairs  which  the  people  are  coming  to  increasingly 
demand.  If  this  be  a  correct  appreciation  of  the  momentum 
already  achieved,  are  we  not  justified  in  anticipating  for  this  cause 
a  spontaneous,  normal  growth  without  having  recourse  to  forcing 
processes  ? 

The  Massachusetts  act,  therefore,  while  a  recognition  of  the 

necessity  for  municipal  accounting  reform,  was,  at  the  time  of  its 

passage  in  1906,  based  upon  the  theory  that  any 

Voluntary  needed  changes  in  methods  would,  in  the  long 

Uniformity  ...  '  .   ° 

run,  prove  most  effective  if  our  public  officials 

could  be  brought  to  make  them  in  a  measure  voluntarily,  after 
they  themselves  had  come  to  appreciate  their  importance,  rather 
than  to  attempt  to  force  such  changes  prematurely  upon  muni- 
cipalities unwilling  or  unable  to  comprehend  the  need  of  reform 
in  their  accounting  methods.  Hence,  instead  of  meeting  the  ques- 
tion in  the  manner  which  was  theoretically  most  logical,  namely, 
by  providing  for  the  general  installation  of  a  uniform  system  of 
municipal  accounting  throughout  the  commonwealth,  with  inci- 
dental returns  for  statistical  purposes  to  a  central  bureau  upon  a 
schedule  based  upon  the  accounting  system,  the  legislature  simply 
made  provision  for  furnishing  municipal  accounting  officers  with 
a  schedule  which  was  to  be  uniform  for  all  cities  and  towns. 
No  preliminary  effort  to  install  uniform  classifications  or  methods 
in  the  keeping  of  accounts,  as  a  prerequisite  for  the  presentation 
of  statistics  on  a  uniform  basis,  has  consequently  been  attempted 
by  the  bureau. 

But  to  devise  a  schedule  which  would  be  scientific  in  its  con- 
ception and,  at  the  same  time,  capable  of  securing  classified  in- 
formation upon  a  uniform  basis  from  the  existing  heterogeneous 
and  inaccurate  "  systems "  of  municipal  bookkeeping,  which, 
like  Topsy,  had  "  just  growed,"  and  the  character  of  which  was 
reflected  in  poorly-arranged,  uninforming,  and  sometimes  inac- 


CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY  233 

curate  auditors'  and  treasurers'  reports,  was  a  very  difficult 
matter;  and  it  imposed  a  task  of  considerable  responsibility  and 
magnitude  upon  the  bureau  which  was  charged  with  it.  We 
have  been  obliged,  under  the  circumstances,  to  take  the  records 
of  cash  transactions  in  the  defective  form  in  which  they  have 
been  frequently  found  to  exist  in  our  cities  and  towns,  and, 
under  these  unpropitious  conditions,  to  re-arrange  and  classify 
them  to  the  best  of  our  ability,  in  accordance  with  principles 
now  generally  accepted  by  students  of  municipal  administration 
and  public  accounting  problems. 

The  first  published  report  embodying  the  results  of  the  work 
of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  in  this  field  was  issued 
in  September,  1908.  The  experience  acquired  in  its  preparation 
demonstrated  the  necessity  for  devising  a  comprehensive  plan  of 
classifying  municipal  accounts,  more  carefully  thought  out  than 
had  been  done  up  to  that  time,  and  accompanied  by  proper  ex- 
planatory statements  for  the  benefit  of  both  local  officials  and  the 
public,  and  until  this  was  completed,  it  was  impossible  to  make 
appreciable  progress  in  the  work  of  intelligently  editing  the 
schedules  as  returned  by  local  officials  and  putting  them  into 
condition  fit  for  tabulation.  This  has  involved,  as  an  essential 
of  the  process,  the  devising  of  a  comprehensive,  standard  ter- 
minology with  proper  definitions,  which  has  resulted,  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  situation,  in  the  use  of  terms  and  expressions  which, 
in  some  cases,  may  have  a  new  and  unfamiliar  sound  to  the 
public  ear.  But  the  development  of  a  terminology  and,  indeed, 
the  occasional  invention  of  new  words  is  an  element  in  the  evo- 
lution of  every  science,  and  if  municipal  finance,  with  its  ac- 
companying accounting  problems,  is  to  be  dignified  by  recog- 
nition as  having  a  scientfic  basis  and  given  the  position  to  which 
it  is  entitled  as  a  branch  of  political  science,  the  necessity  of  its 
finding  expression  in  terms  to  a  certain  extent  peculiar  to  itself 
cannot  be  avoided.  It  need  scarcely  be  urged  that  it  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  that  this  nomenclature  be  popularized  as 
speedily  as  possible  and  that  its  definitions  be  formulated  with 
clearness  and  exactness. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  a  discussion  of  classifications  and 
terminology;  but  I  may  perhaps  be  permitted  to  cite  a  single 


234 

instance  from  Massachusetts  experience  which 
Massachusetts  wiu  illustrate  as  strikingly  as  anything  I  can 

think  of,  the  significance  and  potentiality  of 
what  may  be  called  the  statistical  point  of  view  in  treating  the 
subject  of  municipal  finances.  This  is  the  disclosure  of  the  mis- 
leading character  of  the  debt  statements  of  our  municipalities 
when  based,  as  they  are  quite  likely  to  be,  upon  the  narrow  defi- 
nition of  "  net  indebtedness  "  laid  down  by  Massachusetts  law. 
The  general  statutory  authority  for  the  incurring  of  debts  by 
cities  and  towns  in  Massachusetts  limits  the  amount  to  which  a 
city  may  become  indebted  to  "  two  and  one-half  per  cent  on  the 
average  of  the  assessors'  valuations  of  the  taxable  property 
therein  for  the  three  preceding  years,  the  valuation  of  each  year 
being  first  reduced  by  the  amount  of  all  abatements  allowed 
thereon  previous  to  the  last  day  of  December  in  the  year  pre- 
ceding said  assessment "  ;l  and  it  is  provided  that  "  a  town  shall 
not  become  indebted  in  an  amount  exceeding  three  per  cent  on 
the  last  preceding  valuation,  for  the  assessment  of  taxes,  of  the 
taxable  property  therein." 2  This  is  what  is  commonly  called 
the  "  debt  limit "  and  the  theory  of  the  law  was,  of  course,  that 
the  cities  and  towns  of  the  commonwealth  required  some  such 
salutary  check  upon  their  borrowing  propensities. 

But  the  law  recognized  certain  forms  of  debt,  which  it  speci- 
fied should  be  excluded  in  reckoning  the  debt  limit,  such  as  water 
debt,  debt  incurred  for  municipal  lighting  purposes  to  an  amount 
not  exceeding,  in  a  town  five  per  cent  and,  in  a  city,  not  ex- 
ceeding two  and  one-half  per  cent  of  the  last  preceding  valua- 
tion, temporary  tax  loans,  and  temporary  loans  for  grade  cross- 
ing abolition  purposes.  And  from  time  to  time,  a  sympathetic 
legislature  has  barkened  to  appeals  of  cities  and  towns  for  ex- 
emption, for  some  special  reason,  from  the  operation  of  the  gen- 
eral law  and  has  granted  permission  to  borrow  "  outside  the 
debt  limit "  for  purposes  which  it  was  the  intent  of  the  statute 
should  be  provided  for  within  the  debt  limit. 

Now  it  is  rudimentary  to  say  that  the  net  debt  of  a  muni- 
cipality is  found  by  deducting  from  the  total  funded  or  fixed  debt 


1  Revised  Laws,  chapter  27,  section  3. 

2  Revised  Laws,  chapter  27,  section  4. 


CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY  235 

the  amount  which  has  been  set  aside  in  sinking  funds  to  pay  the 
debt  when  due ;  and  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  in- 
dicate that  funded  or  fixed  debt  does  not  include 

Indebtedness  ,  .       . 

tax  loans,  temporary  grade  crossing  loans,  or 

outstanding  warrants  or  orders,  since  such  obligations  are  pre- 
sumably offset  by  assets,  that  is,  tax  loans  by  uncollected  taxes, 
temporary  grade  crossing  loans  by  revenue  due  from  the  com- 
monwealth or  corporations,  and  warrants  or  orders  by  cash  on 
hand.  But  the  statutory  definition  of  "  net  debt "  in  Massachu- 
setts is  not  so  simple.  Within  the  meaning  of  our  law  the  term 
"  net  indebtedness  "  includes  "  the  indebtedness  of  a  county,  city, 
town  or  district,  omitting  debts  created  for  supplying  the  in- 
habitants with  water  and  other  debts  exempted  from  the  opera- 
tion of  the  law  limiting  their  indebtedness,  and  deducting  the 
amount  of  sinking  funds  available  for  the  payment  of  the  in- 
debtedness included."  x  It  will  thus  be  noted  that  the  statutory 
net  debt  in  Massachusetts  is  quite  different  from  the  real  net 
debt,  since  in  determining  the  former  the  funded  or  fixed  debt 
from  which  the  sinking  fund  must  be  subtracted  does  not  take 
into  account  either  funded  water  debt  or,  under  certain  circum- 
stances, a  portion  of  municipal  lighting  debt,  nor  indeed  any  other 
loans  that  may  be  specially  exempted  from  time  to  time  by  the 
legislature  from  the  debt-limit  law. 

It  is,  therefore,  obvious  that  a  statement  of  net  debt  which  is 
confined  to  a  figure  which  includes  only  those  obligations  em- 
braced within  the  scope  of  the  so-called  "  net  indebtedness  "  as 
narrowly  defined  by  the  statute,  excluding  as  it  does  such  an  im- 
portant single  item  of  funded  debt  as  water  debt,  can  hardly  be 
said  to  tell  the  whole  story  of  the  debt  burden.  According  to 
the  Standard  Dictionary,  a  debt  is  "  that  which  one  owes  to  an- 
other," or  "  the  obligation  resting  upon  one  person  to  pay  or  per- 
form something  that  is  due  to  another."  The  simplest  definition 
of  a  municipal  debt  is — any  obligation,  or,  using  the  term  in  a 
broad,  collective  sense,  all  the  obligations  which  a  municipality 
is  bound  at  any  given  date  to  pay;  and,  generally  speaking,  it 
may  be  said  that  there  is  tangible,  documentary  evidence,  in  the 
form  of  bonds  or  notes  bearing  interest,  of  such  debts.  The  fact 

1  Revised  Laws,  chapter  8,  section  5,  clause  12. 


236      ACCOUNTS  AND  STATISTICS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS 

that  a  debt  may  legally,  or  even  by  specific  authority  of  law,  be 
incurred  outside  the  debt  limit,  so  called,  does  not  make  it,  on 
that  account,  any  the  less  a  debt.  Because,  therefore,  a  debt  is 
a  debt,  whether  it  be  laid  within  or  without  the  debt  limit,  the 
Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  has  undertaken  to  gather 
and  tabulate  debt  statistics  independent  of  mere  statutory  defi- 
nitions and  has  presented  for  the  first  time  in  a  report  recently 
issued,  tables  which  show,  for  the  33  cities  and  the  65  towns 
having  a  population  of  5,000,  the  real  net  debt  derived  by  de- 
ducting the  amount  of  the  sinking  fund  from  the  total  funded 
or  fixed  debt  (including  water  and  other  bonded  debt  not  reck- 
oned in  calculating  the  debt  limit).  Tables  are  also  presented  for 
the  first  time  showing  the  total  outstanding  indebtedness  at  the 
close  of  the  fiscal  year,  classified  according  to  the  character  of 
the  obligation.  These  latter  form  a  comprehensive  exhibit  which 
includes  not  only  the  funded  or  fixed  debt,  but  temporary  loans, 
(such  as  money  borrowed  in  anticipation  of  taxes,  grade-crossing 
loans,  etc.),  as  well  as  unpaid  warrants  and  orders,  which,  though 
represented  by  cash  on  hand,  must  be  treated  as  a  liability.  Ob- 
jection may  perhaps  be  made  to  treating  loans  in  anticipation  of 
taxes  as,  in  a  proper  sense,  debt,  yet,  being  annually  recur- 
rent, there  is  always,  in  practically  every  city  of  the  state  and 
in  most  of  the  towns,  an  outstanding  debt  composed  of  these 
temporary  interest-bearing  loans,  which  may  no  sooner  be  paid 
off  than  new  loans  of  a  similar  kind  are  negotiated ;  indeed,  we 
find  that  of  the  total  interest  burden  of  our  33  Massachusetts 
cities  in  1907,  $9,268,827,  nearly  6  per  cent,  or  $550,212,  was  for 
interest  on  temporary  tax  loans.  The  total  outstanding  indebted- 
ness for  the  33  cities  for  1907  was  $191,901,845,  classified  as 
follows : 

Loans  for  General  Purposes $136,968,495.60 

Loans  for  Public  Service  Enterprises 47,217,050.00 

Loans  for  Cemetery  Purposes 202,200.00 

Temporary  Loans : 

Tax $6,863,616.46 

Other 348,000.00 

7,211,616.46 

Warrants  or  Orders  Outstanding 302,483.38 


Total $191,901,845.44 


CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY  237 

Of  the  total  outstanding  indebtedness,  $184,729,745  was  funded 
or  fixed  debt,  from  which,  deducting  sinking  funds,  we  find  the 
net  debt  of  the  33  cities  for  the  year  under  consideration  to  be 
$131,243,203. 

Included  in  the  term  "  Loans  for  General  Purposes  "  are  not 

only  loans  issued  ostensibly  for  "  general "  purposes  but  likewise 

all  loans  whether  specified  as  for  school,  fire, 

Loans  for  "  Gen-     pouce    etc     purposes,  since  these  could  not  be 

era!    Purposes   %  ,*T    -  ,-  ,          , , . 

shown  separately  by  figures  which  would  be  com- 
parable. We  have  also  felt  constrained  to  include  with  general 
loans  in  the  tabulations  published  this  year  all  sums  borrowed 
from  trust  funds  without  differentiating  between  amounts  thus 
obtained  for  which  notes  or  other  evidence  of  indebtedness  have 
been  given  and  amounts  which  have  been  merely  taken  and  used 
without  this  plain  requirement  of  ethics,  if  not  of  law,  being  com- 
plied with.  In  the  form  in  which  debt  transactions  have  hitherto 
been  reported  to  the  Bureau,  it  has  not  been  deemed  prudent  to 
undertake  an  exact  presentation  of  the  facts  in  such  cases  in  the 
current  report;  but  as  the  cities  and  towns  are  now  (1910)  being 
asked  to  make  returns  regarding  trust  fund  transactions  on  a 
schedule  specially  prepared  for  the  purpose,  we  anticipate  being 
able  to  do  this  in  the  future. 

The  difficulties  with  which  the  Bureau  has  had  to  contend  in 
the  effort  to  compile  comparable  statistics  of  city  and  town 
finances  under  the  conditions  found  to  exist  in  most  of  our  muni- 
cipalities can  scarcely  be  appreciated  by  any  one  unfamiliar  with 
them ;  as  was  said  in  our  first  report  "  to  undertake  the  examina- 
tion, classification,  and  consolidation  into  comparable  form  of 
the  receipts  and  disbursements  of  354  municipalities,  hardly  any 
two  of  which  kept  their  books  of  accounts  on  the  same  basis,  was 
to  plunge  into  a  veritable  statistical  jungle."  In  the  course  of  the 
field  work  and  office  editing  which  is  necessary  to  put  the 
schedules  into  proper  condition  for  tabulation,  comparison,  and 
analysis,  instances  in  which  departmental  accounts  cannot  be 
made  to  balance  so  as  to  check  up  with  the  treasurer's  cash  as 
given  in  the  published  reports  are  of  common  occurrence,  while 
trust  fund  transactions  which  are  independent  of  the  city  or  town 
treasurer's  jurisdiction  furnish  an  element  of  complication  fre- 


238      ACCOUNTS  AND  STATISTICS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS 

quently  requiring  much  time  and  ingenuity  to  adjust  satisfac- 
torily. In  many,  if  not  a  majority,  of  our  Massachusetts  towns, 
each  department  keeps  its  own  accounts  and  neither  the  town 
treasurer  nor  any  other  one  person  has  a  record  of  the  purposes 
for  which  all  town  money  is  spent,  so  that  the  co-operation  of 
numerous  officials  is  frequently  necessary  in  order  to  furnish 
the  information  desired  for  a  complete  statement  of  the  town's 
finances.  Again,  there  is  sometimes  conflict  of  opinion  as  to 
whose  duty  it  is  to  make  out  the  Bureau's  schedules;  thus  the 
treasurer  or  auditor  passing  out  of  office,  being  no  longer  a  town 
official,  is  apt  to  be  indifferent  as  to  his  duty  to  make  out  a  return 
for  the  past  year,  while  his  successor,  a  new  man,  pleads  insuffi- 
cient familiarity  with  the  accounts  to  do  so.  This  is  also  an  in- 
dictment of  existing  methods  or  lack  of  methods;  obviously  ac- 
counts should  always  be  in  such  form  that  a  citizen  deemed  to  be 
of  sufficient  intelligence  to  keep  the  town  books  should  be  able 
to  tell  what  they  mean,  and  hence  be  able  to  make  returns  to  the 
state  bureau. 

Many  of  our  town  officials  do  not  seem  to  understand  why  the 
information  which  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  undertakes  to  gather 

and  publish  cannot  be  obtained  from  town  re- 
use ot  btate  ports,  and  our  schedules  are  sometimes  returned 
Schedules  , 

in  blank  accompanied  by  a  copy  of  the  town  re- 
port with  the  ingenious  suggestion  that  we  make  our  compilations 
from  that  document.  If  we  were  dealing  with  each  town  separ- 
ately, this  would  be  difficult  enough,  as  many  of  our  local  officials 
fail  to  render  an  accurate  and  intelligent  accounting  to  their  own 
citizens,  such  as  ought  to  be  required  of  them  irrespective  of  the 
demands  of  a  state  department;  but  since  one  of  the  principal 
purposes  of  our  work  is  to  compile  the  financial  data  of  our 
cities  and  towns  upon  a  basis  which  will  make  them  as  nearly 
comparable  as  possible,  it  ought  to  be  understood  that  no  head- 
way whatever  can  be  made  by  attempting  to  rely  wholly  upon 
official  documents.  A  common  characteristic  of  these  reports  is 
a  list  of  names  of  persons  or  firms  to  whom  money  has  been  paid, 
but  with  not  the  slightest  clue  as  to  what  the  expenditure  was 
for.  If  these  documents  are  any  reflection  of  local  public  opinion, 
the  people  in  some  of  our  cities  and  towns  would  seem  to  be  vastly 


CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY  239 

more  interested  in  being  informed  as  to  what  various  individuals 
get  out  of  the  public  than  they  are  in  the  really  important  ques- 
tion as  to  what  the  public  gets  out  of  the  individual  who  renders 
it  service  or  sells  it  supplies. 

The  blanks  on  which  the  returns  for  1907  were  to  be  entered, 
were  mailed  simultaneously  to  the  accounting  officers  of  the  354 
cities  and  towns  of  the  commonwealth  on  April  3,  1908.  It  was 
not  until  July  27,  1909,  over  fifteen  months  afterwards,  that  the 
last  city  schedule  was  returned  to  the  bureau.  The  last  of  the 
towns  of  over  5,000  inhabitants  to  make  return  did  not  do  so 
until  August  31,  1909,  sixteen  months  after  the  schedule  had  been 
sent  out,  and  repeated  proddings  by  letter  or  visit  of  a  special 
agent  were  necessary  to  accomplish  even  this  belated  result.  The 
returns  having  been  received  by  the  Bureau  had  then  to  be  sub- 
jected to  examination  and  verification,  and  this  necessitated  in 
turn  more  or  less  additional  correspondence  and,  in  the  case  of 
30  of  the  33  cities  and  62  of  the  65  large  towns,  a  personal  visit 
by  a  special  agent,  since  it  was  impossible  to  tabulate  the  re- 
turns as  made  even  by  accounting  officers  who  were  most  anxious 
to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  law  but  who  had  failed  to 
properly  classify  their  entries  on  the  schedules.  To  make  these 
visits  and  personal  examinations  of  the  accounts,  frequently  in- 
volving the  travel  of  long  distances,  calling  upon  town  officials 
at  their  homes  or  places  of  business  and  awaiting  their  con- 
venience for  interviews  after  hours,  the  Bureau  had,  during  the 
greater  portion  of  this  period,  the  services  of  but  two  agents,  and 
a  part  of  the  time  of  only  one. 

Under  the  circumstances  described  two  years  have  elapsed  be- 
tween the  publication  of  our  first  and  second  reports,  and  the 
latter  now  issued  in  the  autumn  of  1910  comprises  the  data  for 
approximately  the  calendar  year  1907.  That  the  practical  value 
of  these  statistics  to  administrators  and  students  of  municipal 
affairs  would  be  greater  if  they  were  more  timely  is  not  to  be  dis- 
puted; but  this  is  a  defect  which  public  opinion  and  legislation 
must  be  trusted  to  ultimately  remove.  We  have  faith  to  believe 
that  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  municipal  officers  who  are 
either  incompetent  or  indifferent  to  their  responsibilities  will  be 
aroused  by  the  citizens  and  taxpayers,  perhaps  rudely,  from  their 


240      ACCOUNTS  AND  STATISTICS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS 

slumbers ;  and  that  competent,  hard-working  officials,  who  them- 
selves have  long  since  seen  the  necessity  for  reform  in  account- 
ing methods,  but  who  have  preached  it  in  vain,  will  find  substan- 
tial encouragement  in  an  awakened  and  enlightened  public  senti- 
ment Meantime,  we  are  obliged  to  concede  that  we  must  rely 
for  the  desired  data  primarily  upon  appeals  to  the  public  spirit 
of  local  officials  and  their  willingness  to  comply  cheerfully  with 
the  laws  of  the  commonwealth.  The  roll  of  Massachusetts  cities 
and  towns  whose  local  affairs  are  in  the  control  of  citizens  of  the 
type  last  mentioned  is  happily  already  considerable,  and  the  list 
of  those  who  are  beginning  to  appreciate  the  significance  of  this 
work  in  its  relation  to  efficient  public  service  by  undertaking  a  re- 
vison  of  their  accounting  methods  is  perceptibly  increasing. 

The  returns  from  the  cities  and  towns  upon  which  our  first 
report,  covering  the  year  1906,  was  based,  were  furnished  to  the 
Bureau  on  a  schedule  which,  compared  with  that 
Progress  of  sent  out  m  IO,IO  t0  be  usecj  jn  reporting  the  finan- 

cial transactions  of  1909,  was,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, exceedingly  crude.  It  was  not  altogether  unnatural  that 
this  should  be  so,  since  the  Bureau,  having  had  imposed  upon  it  a 
venture  in  a  new  and  untrodden  field  of  inquiry,  could  have  at 
the  outset  none  of  the  knowledge  which  can  come  only  through 
practical  experience  in  dealing  with  actual  conditions ;  and  in  the 
collection  of  the  information  which  it  sought  to  secure,  state- 
ments of  local  officials  and  published  figures  in  city  and  town 
reports  could  not,  with  the  limited  equipment  of  the  Bureau  for 
the  new  work,  be  subjected  to  that  careful  examination,  verifica- 
tion and  editing  which  has  since  been  found  essential.  The 
preparation  of  schedules  and  the  translation  of  data  after  they 
have  been  obtained  into  intelligible  tabulations  have  of  necessity 
been  matters  of  evolution;  and  because  of  this  fact,  involving 
numerous  changes  in  both  classification  and  method,  comparison 
between  the  statistics  of  the  reports  for  1906  and  1907  cannot 
fairly  be  made. 

The  chief  merit  of  our  first  effort  to  present  comparative  sta- 
tistics of  the  cities  and  towns  of  Massachusetts  was,  therefore, 
not  so  much  the  value  of  its  statistical  presentations  as  the  op- 
portunity it  afforded  of  arousing  the  civic  conscience  of  the 


CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY  241 

cities  and  towns  of  the  commonwealth.  This  influence,  actively 
at  work  during  the  past  two  years,  has  found  concrete  expres- 
sion in  the  action  of  various  city  governments  and  town  meetings 
which  have  called  for  an  expert  audit  of  accounts — in  some  in- 
stances the  first  ever  undertaken  in  the  history  of  the  muni- 
cipality— and  accompanied  by  a  recommendation  that  a  new  sys- 
tem be  installed  in  accordance  with  the  classifications  prescribed 
by  the  Bureau  of  Statistics.  Such  an  examination  or  audit,  in 
various  degrees  of  completeness,  has  been  made  of  general  or 
departmental  accounts  by  public  accountants  employed  for  the 
purpose,  or  by  investigating  committees,  in  the  cities  of  Everett, 
Gloucester,  Haverhill,  Lawrence,  Lowell,  Lynn,  New  Bedford, 
Quincy,  and  Worcester,  and  in  Boston  by  the  Finance  Commis- 
sion ;  and  in  the  towns  of  Billerica,  Braintree,  Cohasset,  Fram- 
ingham,  Newbury,  Peabody,  Reading,  Revere,  Rockland,  South- 
bridge,  Swampscott,  Wakefield,  Watertown,  Wayland,  and  Whit- 
man, while  in  Townsend  and  perhaps  other  towns  the  by-laws 
have  been  amended  so  as  to  require  the  treasurer  to  classify  his 
accounts,  as  far  as  practicable,  in  conformity  with  the  schedules 
of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics.  We  would  not  have  it  inferred  that 
this  is  a  complete  list  of  municipalities  in  Massachusetts  which 
have  taken  steps  toward  a  reorganization  of  their  accounting 
systems,  either  by  definite  action  of  the  city  government  or  town 
meeting,  or  by  the  initiation  on  the  part  of  progressive  citizens 
of  a  movement  in  behalf  of  a  reform  in  local  financial  methods, 
but  the  cities  and  towns  mentioned  are  fairly  representative  of 
the  awakening  that  is  undoubtedly  taking  place  on  this  important 
subject  in  our  Commonwealth;  and  the  demand  upon  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics  for  information  and  assistance  by  letter  and  per- 
sonal visits  is  continuous  and  increasing. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  the  tendency  of  legislation  rela- 
tive to  municipal  accounting  and  financial  reform  in  Massachu- 
setts thus  far  to  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance 
Te    l  £?  ,on          and,  while   furnishing  cities  and  towns  ample 
authority   for  the  introduction  of  more  scien- 
tific methods  of  treating  this  subject,  to  refrain  from  subjecting 
them  to  compulsory,  statutory  requirements,  coupled  with  pro- 
visions for  enforcing  the  law.     An  exception  must  be  made  to 


242      ACCOUNTS  AND  STATISTICS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS 

this  statement,  the  last  legislature  having  made  a  radical  de- 
parture in  one  important  respect  from  the  consistent  pursuit  of 
its  policy.  This  was  in  the  enactment  of  a  law  requiring  all 
town  notes  issued  on  or  after  the  first  of  January,  1911,  to  be 
certified  by  a  state  officer,  and  since  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  has 
come  to  be  regarded  as  the  central  office  for  information  in  re- 
gard to  municipal  matters  in  Massachusetts,  this  duty  was  placed 
upon  the  head  of  that  department.  The  law  was  the  direct  out- 
come of  the  lamentable  experience  of  the  town  of  Framingham, 
whose  town  treasurer  was  found,  about  a  year  ago,  to  have  been 
guilty  of  forging  town  notes  to  an  amount,  in  the  aggregate,  of 
several  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  disclosure  directed  public 
attention  to  the  fact  that  no  adequate  safeguards  were  thrown 
around  the  issue  of  municipal  securities  by  law,  although  two 
or  three  banking  institutions  in  Boston  had  built  up  a  consider- 
able business  in  certifying  notes  and  bonds.  Governor  Draper, 
in  his  inaugural  address  to  the  legislature  in  January  last,  ac- 
cordingly made  the  following  recommendations : 

I  suggest  that  some  plan  be  adopted  requiring  the  registration 
and  certification  in  the  office  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  all 
town  and  city  loans.  This  arrangement  should  be  most  carefully 
thought  out  and  made  as  thorough  as  possible,  and  yet  the  sys- 
tem should  not  be  too  expensive.  A  proper  charge  for  all  regis- 
tration and  certification  of  the  loans  should  be  made  to  the  towns 
and  cities  having  it  done.  I  believe  the  registration  and  certifica- 
tion of  such  loans  would  cause  them  to  sell  at  a  higher  price,  so 
that  the  charges  for  having  it  done  would  be  no  hardship  to  the 
municipalities,  while  it  would  be  of  material  advantage  to  in- 
vestors. 

The  legislature,  following  its  traditional  custom  to  proceed 
slowly  in  enlarging  the  field  of  state  supervision,  placed  its  ap- 
proval upon  the  principle  involved  in  this  recommendation,  but 
confined  its  operation  specifically  to  town  notes;  that  is  to  say, 
bonds  issued  by  towns  as  differentiated  from  notes  are  not  em- 
braced within  the  scope  of  the  act,  nor  are  either  the  bonds  or 
notes  of  cities. 

In  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  new  law,  no  note  issued 
by  a  Masachusetts  town  on  or  after  January  i,  1911,  will  be  legal 


CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY  243 

unless  made  upon  one  of  the  blank  forms  which  are  to  be  fur- 
nished town  treasurers  for  the  purpose.  Pursuant  to  the  re- 
quirements of  the  act,  therefore,  a  book  of  engraved  blank  notes 
will  be  furnished  by  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  to  the  treasurers  of 
each  of  the  321  towns  in  the  Commonwealth,  each  note  being 
serially  numbered  and  attached  to  a  stub,  on  which  the  treasurer 
will  be  required  to  enter  certain  information  to  be  kept  as  a  per- 
manent record  of  the  transaction — such  as  the  date  of  the  town 
meeting  authorizing  the  loan,  the  purpose  of  the  loan  (whether 
in  anticipation  of  taxes  or  for  some  other  object),  the  total 
amount  of  the  loan  authorized,  the  amount  of  previous  issues  of 
the  loan,  the  amount  of  the  note,  the  date  of  issue,  the  balance  of 
the  loan  unissued,  the  person  to  whom  the  note  is  payable,  the 
place  of  payment,  the  date  the  note  is  due,  the  rate  of  interest, 
and  a  statement  as  to  how  the  interest  is  made  payable  (i.  e., 
whether  annually,  semi-annually,  or  discounted).  A  blank  form 
will  also  be  furnished  on  which  the  town  clerk  must  certify  the 
exact  text  of  the  vote  of  the  town  meeting  authorizing  the  loan ; 
also  that  of  the  persons  who  sign  the  note  as  treasurer  and  select- 
men are,  in  fact,  the  treasurer  and  selectmen  duly  qualified  to  act 
as  such. 

When  the  treasurer  wishes  to  issue  a  note,  he  will  use  one  of 
the  blank  forms  furnished  by  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  which, 
after  being  carefully  filled  out,  he  must  transmit,  together  with 
the  town  clerk's  certification  as  provided  for,  to  the  Bureau.  The 
receipt  of  the  note  by  the  Bureau  will  then  be  acknowledged  by 
letter  to  the  town  treasurer,  the  town  clerk,  and  each  of  the 
selectmen  whose  names  appear  on  the  notes  as  the  signers 
thereof,  and  they  will  be  requested  to  return  certificates  identify- 
ing their  signatures  to  the  note.  If  the  Director  of  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics,  upon  examination,  finds  that  the  note  appears  to 
have  been  duly  issued  in  accordance  with  the  vote  of  the  town 
and  to  have  been  signed  by  the  duly  qualified  officials  thereof, 
he  will  so  certify  on  the  face  of  the  note.  The  note  will  then 
be  returned  by  registered  mail  to  the  treasurer  of  the  town.  In 
accordance  with  the  law,  there  will  be  charged  for  the  certifica- 
tion of  each  note  a  fee  which,  it  is  intended,  shall  be  sufficient 
to  cover  the  cost  of  furnishing  the  forms  and  incidental  ex- 


244 

penses  of  certification.1  All  official  papers  pertaining  to  the  issue 
will  be  open  to  inspection  to  any  interested  person  at  the  office 
of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  in  the  State  House.  One  incidental 
provision  of  the  act,  important  in  connection  with  the  Bureau's 
statistical  work,  is  the  obligation  imposed  upon  town  treasurers 
to  notify  the  Director  of  the  Bureau  immediately  whenever  any 
note  issued  shall  have  become  due  and  paid  and  to  state  the 
source  from  which  the  money  to  pay  the  same  was  obtained.  A 
town  treasurer  violating  any  of  the  provisions  of  the  act  is  made 
liable  to  a  fine  of  from  $100  to  $500. 

The  functions  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  are, 
as  its  name  implies,  primarily  statistical,  and  we  do  not  propose 
to  lose  sight  of  this  fact.  We  have  found,  indeed,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  compile  reliable  data  relating  to  municipal  finances 
without  thorough  reform  in  accounting  and  budget-making 
methods;  but  while  bearing  in  mind  that  accounting  and  bud- 
getary reform  are  essential  to  and  lie  at  the  very  foundation  of 
any  plan  of  trustworthy  municipal  statistics,  we  should  not  fail 
to  remember  that  the  public  as  a  whole  cannot  be  expected  to 
concern  itself  greatly  with  bookkeeping  technique.  Even  ex- 
cellent accountants  are  too  often  unable  to  see  beyond  their  books 
and  have  not  the  imaginative  faculty  needed  to  enable  them  to 
select  the  essential  facts  for  presentation  to  the  public,  which 
wants  to  know — or  ought  to  want  to  know — what  the  sources 
of  municipal  revenue  are  and  how  and  for  what  purposes  its 
money  is  being  spent ;  and  this  information  it  cannot  get  from  re- 
ports, however  accurate,  which  are  little  more  than  mere  trans- 
cripts of  cash  accounts  accompanied  by  no  effort  to  arrange  and 
group  the  figures  in  such  manner  as  to  give  them  real  signifi- 
cance. City  and  town  officials  should,  therefore,  not  only  know 
how  to  keep  books  and  records  accurately  and  systematically, 
but  they  ought,  also,  in  order  to  round  out  their  capacity  for  use- 
fulness to  the  people,  to  possess  the  qualifications  of  being  good 
reporters. 

However  charitable  a  view  we  may  wish  to  take  in  explana- 

1  This  fee  has  been  fixed  at  a  flat  rate  of  $3  for  each  note  certified 
without  regard  to  the  amount  of  the  note. 


CHARLES  F.  GETTEMY  245 

tion  of  conditions  which  may  reflect  merely  the  result  of  gen- 
erations of  indifference,  it  is  plainly  apparent,  by  all  the  signs 
of  the  times,  that  the  people  do  not  propose  to  be  governed  much 
longer  by  the  spirit  of  laissez  faire  in  their  municipal  affairs. 
Not  better  accounting  methods  alone,  therefore,  but  the  galvaniz- 
ing of  the  bookkeeper's  figures  into  living  object  lessons  that  will 
make  for  a  better  and  broader  civic  life — this  is  the  real  purpose 
of  the  statistics  of  municipal  finances  we  are  collecting  and  com- 
piling in  Massachusetts. 


A  Comparison  of  the  Forms  of  Commis- 
sion Government  in  Cities. 

By  ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

The  number  of  cities  governed  under  the  commission  form  has 
greatly  increased  during  1910.  Any  form  of  administration 
which  has  been  adopted  or  approved  by  a  hundred  municipalities 
merits  the  respectful  consideration  of  every  student  of  city  gov- 
ernment, and  particularly  the  members  of  the  National  Municipal 
League.  In  November,  1909,  fifty  cities  were  reported  as  operat- 
ing or  ready  to  operate  under  the  system  which  has  received  the 
name  of  the  "  commission  "  form;  to-day  between  ninety  and  one 
hundred  cities  have  it  in  force  or  have  voted  to  adopt  it,  and  as 
many  more  have  the  matter  under  consideration.  If  a  new  name 
continues  to  be  added  to  the  list  each  week  it  may  not  be  long 
before  a  majority  of  our  American  municipalities  will  be  gov- 
erned by  a  small  board,  elected  at  large  and  exercising  adequate 
power  under  certain  restraining  "  checks ",  while  New  York, 
Chicago,  Boston,  and  other  centers  of  population  will  be  actively 
discussing  proper  methods  of  applying  the  system  to  metropolitan 
conditions. 

During  1910,  cities  have  secured  commission  charters  or  states 
have  passed  general  acts  permitting  municipalities  to  adopt  the 
board  form  as  follows: 

Kentucky,  Illinois,  South  Carolina,  and  Louisiana  passed  acts 
under  which  the  cities  of  Newport   (Ky.),  Columbia  (S.  C.), 
and  Shreveport   (La.),  have  already  voted  to 
Commission  ODerate 

Governed  Cities     °P™«; 

In  Kansas,  the  cities  of  Topeka,  Coffeyville, 

Parsons,  Pittsburg,  Marion,  Cherryvale,  lola,  Wellington,  Em- 
poria,  Abilene,  Newton,  Girard,  Neodesha  and  Caldwell,  in- 
stalled the  plan  or  decided  to  do  so. 

Eight  additional  cities  in  Texas  took  advantage  of  a  state  la\r 
permitting  any  municipality  of  less  than  10,000  to  adopt  it  by  a 

(246) 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  247 

majority  vote  of  the  electors — Kennedy,  Aransas  Pass,  Harlingen, 
Barry,  Lyford,  Port  Lavaca,  Marble  Falls,  and  Terrell. 

In  Iowa,  Keokuk  and  Burlington  began  operating  and  Sioux 
City,  Marshalltown  and  Fort  Dodge  voted  to  also  follow  the 
example  of  Des  Moines  and  Cedar  Rapids. 

In  Oklahoma,  McAlester,  Muskogee,  El  Reno,  Bartlesville, 
Sapulpa,  Miami  and  Duncan  are  now  included. 

Vermillion  (S.  D.),  Mankato  (Minn.),  Eau  Claire  (Wis.), 
Tacoma  (Wash.),  Lynn  (Mass.),  Modesto  and  San  Luis  Obispo 
(Calif.),  and  High  Point  (N.  C),  are  recent  acquisitions.  Hat- 
tiesburg,  Miss.,  began  operating  during  the  present  year,  although 
it  voted  in  1909.  In  Oakland  (Calif.),  the  board  of  freeholders 
have  already  reported  a  commission  charter,  which  will  be  voted 
on  shortly,  and  if  accepted  by  the  city,  will  go  to  the  state  legis- 
lature for  its  approval  early  in  191 1.1 

From  this  enumeration  have  been  omitted  several  cities  in 
Tennessee,  one  in  Missouri,  one  in  California,  three  in  Texas, 
one  in  North  Carolina,  and  one  in  Massachusetts,  which,  although 
found  in  some  published  lists,  cannot  properly  be  classed  as  com- 
mission cities.  (The  full  list  of  cities  which  up  to  November  15, 
1910  had  installed  or  voted  to  install  the  commission  form  is 
found  on  the  last  three  pages.) 

In  those  cities  where  the  plan  has  been  in  operation  for  several 
years,2  its  inauguration  has  been  followed  so  uniformly  by  more 
or  less  marked  improvements  in  the  various  fields  of  municipal 
activity  as  to  impress  even  its  opponents.  Legislative  com- 
mittees opposed  to  the  plan  in  advance,  keen  newspaper  men, 
doubting  anything  which  purports  to  really  change  the  usual 
bad  municipal  conditions,  earnest  but  skeptical  lawyers  and  stu- 
dents of  government,  and  hard-headed  business  men,  have  all 
visited  Galveston  and  Houston  and  Dallas,  Des  Moines,  Cedar 
Rapids,  Leavenworth  and  other  commission  cities,  only  to  be 
convinced  against  their  will  of  the  improvement  wrought  and  to 
go  home  to  advocate  the  adoption  of  the  system  in  their  own 
towns.  It  would  be  interesting  to  enumerate  in  detail  the  results 
in' each  city,  but  such  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  paper.  It  is  suffi- 

1  Adopted  by  City  of  Oakland  in  December,  1910. 

*  For  dates  of  beginning  operation  in  each  city,  see  pp.  278-280. 


248  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

cient  here  to  note  that  a  study  of  the  plan  during  the  past  three 
years,  including  correspondence  with  cities,  a  careful  analy- 
sis of  their  charters,  and  personal  visits  to  the  most  important 
— Galveston,  Houston,  Des  Moines,  Cedar  Rapids,  Hunting- 
ton,  W.  Va.,  Keokuk,  Memphis  and  others — interviewing  citi- 
zens of  all  types  in  these  cities,  attendance  at  meetings  of  the 
commissions,  and  examination  of  records  and  annual  reports,  war- 
rants the  conservative  statement  that  since  the  introduction  of 
the  commission  form  there  has  been  a  marked  increase  in  effi- 
ciency in  municipal  finance  and  in  the  care  of  streets,  including 
paving  and  lighting;  progress  in  the  administration  of  the  police 
and  health  departments,  though  to  a  less  degree  than  in  finance 
and  engineering;  and  a  more  satisfactory  operation  of  muni- 
cipal utilities  and  regulation  of  public-service  corporations  than 
under  the  aldermanic  plan.  There  appears  to  have  been  in  the 
commission  cities,  some  improvement  in  almost  every  field  of 
municipal  activity,  though  differing  in  different  localities.  There 
can  be  no  question  that  the  plan  has  also  greatly  aroused  public 
interest  in  municipal  affairs,  has  inspired  the  people  with  a  here- 
tofore unknown  confidence  in  their  local  governing  body,  and 
seems  to  be  promoting  that  comprehensive  view  of  the  urban 
center  and  its  needs  which  is  manifested  in  the  beginning  of  a 
"  city  plan  "  for  Dallas,  Cedar  Rapids  and  other  municipalities. 
Too  much  should  not  be  claimed,  however,  for  the  commission 
system,  in  view  of  the  short  time  during  which  it  has  been  in 
effect.  Neither  this  nor  any  other  form  of  organization  for  cities 
will  solve  all  the  problems  that  arise  in  connection  with  muni- 
cipal government.  It  does  not  supply  intelligence  to  voters,  nor 
wisdom  to  officials.  It  does  not  eliminate  danger  of  misgovern- 
ment,  nor  insure  against  financial  extravagance.  The  system 
is  only  half  of  the  solution — the  men  (voters  and  officials)  con- 
stitute the  other  half.  Under  the  small  board  plan  there  is  no 
less  need  of  honest  and  vigorous  citizenship  than  heretofore :  its 
advantage  is  that  it  supplies  a  better  form  of  government. 

But  this  is  outside  of  the  scope  of  the  present  discussion  and 
we  must  pass  to  a  consideration  of  the  features  found  in  the 
many  commission  charters  and  state  laws,  their  analysis  and  com- 
parison, and  a  discussion  of  their  respective  excellences  and  de- 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  249 

fects.  Let  us  examine  the  charters  of  Galveston,  Houston,  Austin, 
Dallas,  Fort  Worth,  Wichita,  Haverhill,  Gloucester,  Lynn,  Ber- 
keley (Calif.),  Huntington  (W.  Va.),  Lewiston  (Idaho),  and 
other  cities,  including  the  recent  charters  of  Tacoma  and  Oakland 
(Calif.)  ;  the  state  laws  of  Iowa,  Kansas,  North  Dakota,  South 
Dakota,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  Mississippi,  and  other  common- 
wealths, not  forgetting  the  recent  acts  of  Kentucky,  Illinois,  South 
Carolina  and  Louisiana.  An  attempt  has  been  made  to  distinguish 
between  those  elements  which  are  merely  incidental  and  those 
which,  from  their  importance  and  their  presence  in  all  the  com- 
mission charters  and  laws,  may  be  considered  as  properly  char- 
acteristic and  fundamental. 

I.  The  first  feature  which  appears  from  even  a  cursory  exami- 
nation of  the  commission  laws  and  charters  is  the  small  number 
of  members  of  the  governing  body. 

The  usual  number  of  members  of  the  commission  is  five,  that 
being  the  number  in  the  boards  of  Galveston,  Houston,  Des 

Moines,  Dallas,  Cedar  Rapids,  and  in  most  of 
Small  Board   the  dties  of   Texas>   IQW^  and   the  Dakotas. 


Three  is  the  next  most  common  number,  occurring  usually  in  the 
smaller  cities  ;  particularly  under  the  Kansas  law  for  cities  of  the 
second  class  (of  less  than  15,000  population)  ;  in  Iowa,  for  cities 
of  between  7,000  and  25,000  population;  and  in  the  Texas  gen- 
eral act  which  applies  to  cities  of  less  than  10,000  population. 
The  Wisconsin  law  makes  three  the  number  of  the  commis- 
sioners for  all  cities  which  may  adopt  the  plan.  The  New  Mex- 
ico law  allows  from  three  to  five  commissioners,  while  the  Miss- 
issippi statute  provides  "  three  or  five  ".  Huntington  and  Blue- 
field  (West  Va.),  and  Palestine  (Texas),  have  a  board  of  four, 
including  the  Mayor.  Fort  Worth  (Texas)  has  six;  Lewiston 
(Idaho),  seven,  and  Highpoint  (N.  C),  nine  commissioners. 
The  following  table  summarizes  the  provisions  in  the  various 
cities  on  this  point,  forty  out  of  eighty  cities  tabulated  having 
a  commission  or  council  of  five: 


250 


FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 


Three. 

Denison,  Tex., 
Greenville,  Tex., 
Marshall,  Tex., 
Barry,  Tex., 
Harlingen,  Tex., 
Kennedy,  Tex., 
Aransas  Pass,  Tex., 
Lyford,  Tex. 
Port  Lavaca,  Tex. 
Marble  Falls,  Tex. 
Terrell,  Tex. 
Miami,  Ok. 
Duncan,  Ok. 
McAlester,  Ok., 
Bartlesville,  Ok., 
Baker,  Ore., 
Kansas  Cities  of  2d  claK 

(13  cities), 
Iowa  Cities  of 

7-25,000  (3), 
Wisconsin  (i). 


Six. 
Fort  Worth,  Tex. 


NUMBER  OF  COMMISSIONERS.1 

Four. 

Palestine,  Tex., 
Huntington,  W.  Va., 
Bluefield,  W.  Va., 
Sapulpa,  Ok. 
Enid,  Ok. 


Seven. 
Lewiston,  Idaho. 


Five. 

Galveston, 
Houston, 
Dallas, 
Austin, 
Waco, 
Corpus  Christi, 
Muskogee,  Ok., 
Memphis, 
Haverhill, 
Gloucester, 
Lynn, 

Colorado  Springs, 
Grand  Junction,  Colo., 
Berkeley,  Calif., 
San  Diego,  Calif., 
Oakland, 
Tacoma,  Wash., 
Kansas  Cities  of  ist  class 

(7  cities), 
Iowa  Cities  of  over 

25,000  (4), 
North  Dakota  (3), 
South  Dakota  (7), 
South  Carolina  ^i), 
Kentucky  (l). 

Nine. 
High  Point,  N.  C. 


The  number  of  members  which  a  working  board  should  have 
is  based  upon  two  main  considerations, — the  number  which  can 
be  well  elected  by  voters  at  any  one  time  and  the  natural  limit 
to  the  efficient  number  of  any  working  board. 

Of  these,  the  first  is  most  important.  Our  American  ballots 
are  overloaded  with  the  names  of  candidates :  so  many  offices 
are  to  be  filled  that  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  but  a  politician 
to  inform  himself  as  to  the  merits  of  each  of  the  aspirants  for 
the  many  places  to  be  filled.  The  multiplicity  of  elective  offi- 


1  The  Minnesota  law  contains  no  provision  as  to  the  number  of  commissioners; 
New  Mexico  provides  3-5  commissioners;   Mississippi,  3  or  5. 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  251 

cers  drives  men  into  voting  straight  party  tickets,  a  cross  at 
the  head  of  the  column  which  contains  a  familiar  name  or  two 
being  an  easy  relief  from  wading  through  the  long  list  below. 
A  natural  remedy  is  to  reduce  the  number  of  names  on  the 
ballot.  Why  should  not  five  men  represent  a  city  more  ably 
than  twenty?  It  is  not  the  number  but  the  acts  of  the  council 
which  determines  whether  or  not  it  is  truly  representative.  In 
the  past,  it  has  been  assumed  that  merely  allowing  the  people 
to  vote  for  their  officers  will  ensure  democratic  government; 
it  is  now  recognized  that  democratic  government  means  govern- 
ment in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  people  and  that  the 
people  must  therefore  be  given  easy  means  of  control  of  their 
officials.  One  method  of  control  is  to  provide  for  elections  at 
any  time  that  a  real  need  arises  instead  of  only  at  stated  inter- 
vals ;  the  "  recall "  is  merely  the  privilege  of  electing  a  new 
and  better  official  sooner  than  usual.  Another  method  is  to. 
allow  the  people  to  vote  directly  on  measures  as  well  as  on 
men,  heretofore,  the  two  ideas  have  been  tied  together,  and  the 
only  way  to  secure  one  or  two  needed  laws  was  to  vote  for  the 
men  who  stood  for  these  laws  but  who  also  possibly  stood  for 
others  not  so  desirable.  Another  and  very  simple  method  is 
to  reduce  the  number  of  elective  officers  to  a  reasonable  number, 
small  enough  so  that  the  elector  may  know  something  of  each 
man  for  whom  he  votes.  The  "  short  ballot "  is  very  im- 
portant,— much  more  important  than  is  recognized  by  many,  and 
so  simple  that  it  should  be  instantly  welcomed  as  a  great  addi- 
tion to  the  list  of  effective  methods  of  securing  good  government. 
Present  electoral  methods  in  cities  are  open  to  valid  objec- 
tions, which  have  been  set  forth  clearly  as 
Present  Electoral  follows.2 
Methods 

The  usual  ballot  "  submits  to  popular  elec- 
tion  offices   which   are  too  unimportant  to  attract   or   deserve 

2  "  The  Short  Ballot  Principle," — and  other  publications  of  the  Short 
Ballot  Organization.  The  officers  of  this  organization  are:  President, 
Woodrow  Wilson,  Princeton,  N.  J. ;  Vice  Presidents,  Winston  Churchill, 
Horace  E.  Deming,  Ben  B.  Lindsey,  Wm.  S.  U'Ren,  Wm.  Allen  White, 
Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff;  Sec'y  and  Treas.,  Richard  S.  Childs,  383 
Fourth  Avenue,  N.  Y.  City.  The  object  of  the  organization  is  to  explain 
"  The  Short  Ballot "  principle  to  the  American  people. 


252  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

public  attention;  it  submits  to  popular  election  so  many  offices 
at  one  time  that  many  of  them  are  inevitably  crowded  out  from 
proper  public  attention;  and  it  submits  to  popular  election  so 
many  offices  at  one  time  that  the  business  of  making  up  the 
elaborate  tickets  necessary  at  every  election  makes  the  political 
machine  an  indispensible  instrument  in  electoral  action.  Many 
officials  therefore  are  elected  without  adequate  public  scrutiny 
and  owe  their  selection  not  to  the  people  but  to  the  makers  of 
the  party  ticket,  who  thus  acquire  an  influence  that  is  capable 
of  great  abuse." 

The  "  short  ballot "  principle  is,  "  first,  that  only  those  offices 
should  be  elective  which  are  important  enough  to  attract  (and 
deserve)  public  examination;  and  second,  that  very  few  offices 
should  be  filled  by  election  at  one  time,  so  as  to  permit  adequate 
and  unconfused  public  examination  of  the  candidates."  The 
value  of  these  suggestions  is  evident  and  their  statement  is  so 
terse  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  quote  them  for  their  accept- 
ance. While  not  covering  the  entire  field  of  popular  control — 
what  series  of  propositions  ever  did? — the  short  ballot  principle 
is  of  great  moment,  and  its  adoption  by  many  of  our  foremost 
publicists  and  citizens  is  evidence  of  its  correctness.  It  is  one 
of  the  important  features  of  the  commission  form  in  cities. 

The  foregoing  principle  is  further  emphasized  by  the  fact 
that  the  number  of  members  of  the  municipal  governing  body 
should  be  also  within  the  natural  limits  of  efficiency  for  an 
executive  board.  The  greater  the  number  of  members,  the  less 
the  responsibility  of  each.  In  large  boards  of  directors  and  com- 
mittees it  is  frequently  the  fact  that  many  members  are  absent. 
The  point  at  which  the  individual  ceases  to  consider  that  his  mem- 
bership in  a  group  is  important  varies  in  different  cases,  but 
may  be  said,  from  experience  in  many  fields  of  collective  ac- 
tivity to  be,  for  active  managing  bodies,  at  or  below  seven,  cer- 
tainly below  ten.  The  work  of  city  governing  is  mainly  ad- 
ministrative and  managerial,  and  therefore  a  small  number  is 
desirable.  Most  of  the  cities  have  shown  preference  for  an 
odd  number,  and  for  three  or  five  rather  than  a  more  numerous 
board.  In  Huntington  and  Bluefield,  the  desire  to  have  the 
two  large  parties  equally  represented  on  the  board  led  to  the 
choice  of  four  as  a  number  evenly  divisible. 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD 


253 


Prompt  action  is  one  of  the  possibilities  realized  under  a 
small  commission.  Three  instances  may  be  cited  from  Cedar 
Rapids.  A  well-known  real-estate  agent,  and  a  former  member 
of  the  city  council  for  years,  wished  recently  to  get  a  plat  of  the 
new  subdivision  approved  for  his  firm;  it  took  one  day  to  get  it. 
Under  the  old  plan  it  would  have  required  six  months;  at  least 
that  was  the  time  taken  to  get  through  his  last  previous  plat. 
A  local  independent  telephone  company  wished  to  secure  a  new 
franchise  allowing  it  to  put  its  wires  under  ground  and  to 
make  certain  reconstruction;  this  franchise  was  introduced  (under 
the  old  regime)  in  May  of  one  year  and  was  reported  out  by 
the  committee  in  March  of  the  next  year.  Such  delay  is  im- 
possible under  the  present  system.  The  Douglas  Starch  Works 
wished  to  have  an  unimportant  street  vacated.  Application  was 
made  to  the  council,  and  approved  the  same  day.  Similar  in- 
cidents have  occurred  in  many  cities.  The  board  is  small  enough 
to  act  without  delay. 

The  small  council  or  commission  is  thus  best,  both  from  the 
viewpoint  of  the  voters  who  must  select,  from  that  of  the  board 
itself,  which  must  administer,  and  from  that  of  the  citizens  whose 
welfare  demands  prompt  action  from  municipal  authority. 

The   general    considerations   tending   toward    a   small   board, 

are  further  modified  by  the  number  of  functions 

ivision  in  o          tQ  ^e  performe(j  by  the  municipal  governing  body. 

The  various  duties  naturally  group  themselves 
into  four  or  five  departments.  Supervision  and  general  over- 
sight has  been  given,  in  most  cities,  to  the  mayor-commissioner, 
while  finances,  police  and  fire  matters,  and  streets,  are  well 
marked  divisions  to  each  of  which  a  commissioner  has  been 
almost  uniformly  assigned.  The  fifth  commissioner  has  been 
given  charge  of  light  and  water,  or  water-works  and  sewer- 
age, or  some  other  residual,  but  important,  field  of  activity. 
Galveston  has  besides  the  mayor-president,  commissioners  of 
finance  and  revenue,  police  and  fire,  streets  and  public  property, 
and  water  works  and  sewerage.  The  charters  of  Dallas  and 
Ft.  Worth  and  the  laws  of  North  Dakota  and  South  Dakota  ac- 
cept the  same  divisions.  Houston  divides  its  municipal  admin- 
istration into  finance  and  revenue ;  police  and  fire ;  streets,  bridges 


254  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

and  public  grounds;  and  water,  light  and  health,  beside  the 
mayor,  who  has  general  oversight.  The  Iowa  law  places  the 
mayor  in  charge  of  public  affairs,  while  the  other  departments  are 
accounts  and  finance,  public  safety,  streets  and  public  improve- 
ments, and  parks  and  public  property.  Where  there  are  only 
three  commissioners,  duties  are  consolidated;  in  the  Kansas  law 
for  cities  of  the  second  class,  the  mayor  is  given  charge  of 
police,  fire  and  health,  and  the  other  two  members  have  finance 
and  revenue,  and  streets  and  public  utilities,  respectively.  The 
new  charter  of  Tacoma,  Wash.,  well  drawn  on  the  whole,  places 
the  mayor  in  charge  of  public  affairs,  health  and  sanitation ;  and 
provides,  besides,  for  the  departments  of  finance;  public  safety; 
public  works,  streets,  improvements,  and  property;  and  light  and 
water.  The  Kentucky  law,  passed  in  1910,  and  applying  as  yet 
only  to  cities  of  the  second  class,  provides  for  departments  of 
public  affairs  (in  charge  of  the  mayor),  public  finance,  public 
safety,  public  works  and  public  property.  High  Point,  N.  C, 
with  a  commission  of  nine,  has  besides  the  mayor,  commis- 
sioners of  finance  and  revenue,  police  and  fire,  streets  and  ceme- 
teries, water  works  and  sewerage,  public  buildings  and  property, 
lights  and  lighting,  a  purchasing  commissioner  and  an  auditing 
commissioner.  San  Diego,  Cal.,  separates  the  police  from  the 
fire  department,  allotting  its  five  commissioners  to  finance,  ways 
and  means;  police,  health  and  morals;  public  streets  and  build- 
ings; fire  and  sewers;  and  water. 

In  place,  then  of  the  usual  council,  consisting  sometimes  of 
two  bodies  and  containing  from  ten  to  fifty  or  more  members, 
there  is  substituted  a  single  board  of  five  or  three.  This  small 
board  comprises,  in  most  cases,  all  the  elective  officials  chosen  in 
the  city.  Officers,  such  as  city  engineer,  assessor,  treasurer, 
and  others  of  that  nature,  elected  under  the  aldermanic  plan,  are 
appointed  by  the  commission.  Only  in  a  few  exceptions  are 
officers  other  than  the  commissioners  elected,  not  counting  school 
directors,  boards  of  education  and  library  trustees  which  are  so 
generally  put  in  a  class  by  themselves  at  elections. 

In  this  new  small  council  the  mayor  appears  merely  as  the 
chief  member  and  presiding  officer.  In  most  cases  his  veto 
disappears.  He  is  but  one  of  the  five,  and  votes  as  one.  Whether 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  255 

the  new  body  be  called  a  board  of  commissioners,  as  in  Gal- 
veston,  Dallas,  Fort  Worth  and  the  Kansas  cities,  or  a  council, 
retaining  the  old  name  with  the  new  provisions,  as  in  Des  Moines, 
Colorado  Springs,  Tacoma  and  elsewhere,  the  substance  is  the 
same.  It  is  a  small  board,  easier  to  elect,  and  after  election, 
easier  to  hold  responsible;  and  more  prompt  in  action.  Large 
bodies  move  slowly.  The  danger  of  too  rapid  action  is  obviated 
by  transferring  the  power  of  veto  to  the  voters  as  a  whole,  by 
means  of  the  referendum;  vigor  and  expedition  in  dealing  with 
the  many  administrative  details  of  city  government  are  better 
supplied  by  a  small  board  with  few  members. 

II.  The  second  feature  of  all  the  forms  of  commission  govern- 
ment is  the  abolition  of  wards  as  election  units.  Each  commis- 
sioner is  voted  for  by  all  the  electors,  not  merely  those  from  one 
ward,  and  is  responsible  to  the  entire  city  rather  than  to  a  section 
of  it.  The  elective  principle  is  retained  but  made  to  apply  to  a 
larger  unit. 

Every  commission  charter  and  law  has  this  provision,  either 
specifically  stated  or  enforced  in  actual  practice.  The  commis- 
sioners are  to  be  elected  "  at  large  '',  in  the  Ta- 
Election  at  coma  and  other  late  charters,  as  well  as  in  those 

f6"  °^  Houston  and  the  other  Texas  cities  which 


Representation  adopted  the  plan  among  the  first.  "By  the 
qualified  voters  of  the  whole  city  ",  is  the  provi- 
sion in  Huntington  ;  the  commissioners  "  may  be  residents  of  any 
part  of  the  city  ",  says  the  Haverhill  charter.  This  element  of 
the  commission  plan  is  not  confined,  it  is  true,  to  cities  which 
have  the  commission  plan;  Boise,  Idaho,  for  example,  while  not 
strictly  a  commission  city,  provides  for  the  election  of  a  board  of 
five  "  on  a  general  ticket  ".  Some  other  cities  have  incorporated 
this  provision  in  their  charters  ;  but  it  is  a  characteristic  of  the 
commission  form. 

From  the  side  of  the  voters,  the  board  members  are  more  truly 
representative  than  formerly;  each  voter  wields  more  power, 
since  he  directly  votes  for  all  five,  instead  of  for  only  one  or  two 
of  twenty  councilmen.  Better  men  can  be  elected,  too,  when  all 
the  voters  make  the  selection  ;  the  influence  of  a  bad  ward  is  less 
when  lost  in  the  mass  of  other  votes  than  when  it  can  crystallize 


256  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

by  electing  a  bad  ward  alderman.  Better  known  men  are  se- 
lected and  men  of  broader  outlook  and  larger  caliber.  After 
election,  the  commissioners  are  responsible  to  all  the  citizens, 
and  will  naturally  expect  to  care  for  the  interests  of  the  city  as  a 
whole.  The  trouble  with  the  system  of  ward  representation  is 
that  the  individual  ward  receives  attention — at  least,  those  wards 
with  aldermen  most  efficient  in  "  trading  "  and  arranging  "deals" 
with  fellow  members — but  the  interests  of  the  city  as  a  whole 
suffer.  "  To  secure  one  more  electric  light  in  my  ward,"  said 
a  former  councilman,  "  it  was  necessary  to  agree  to  vote  for  one 
more  arc  in  each  of  the  other  seven  wards."  So  the  city  in- 
stalled and  paid  for  eight  arc  lamps  where  only  one  was  needed. 
The  same  is  true  of  sewer  extensions,  new  street  paving,  grading, 
water  mains.  Des  Moines,  Houston  and  nearly  every  city  which 
had  the  ward  system,  offered  flagrant  examples  of  this  vicious 
system  of  "  part  representation ".  Now  the  commission  form 
changes  all  this.  The  entire  body  of  voters  chooses  the  board  of 
five  and  know  who  the  men  are  for  whom  they  are  voting. 

The  danger  of  having  most  or  all  of  the  commissioners  elected 
from  the  same  ward  or  section  has  not  materialized  in  the  cities 
which  have  adopted  the  election  at  large.  Des  Moines,  divided  by 
the  Des  Moines  River,  into  East  and  West  sides,  elected  for  its 
first  commission  two  from  one  side  and  three  from  the  other ;  and 
there  has  been  no  attempt  discernible  on  the  part  of  the  West 
side  councilmen  to  unduly  favor  their  part  of  the  city.  They 
are  accountable  to  the  entire  city  and  therefore  act  for  the  whole 
city.  In  Cedar  Rapids,  similarly  divided  by  the  Cedar  River, 
only  one  alderman  (commissioner)  was  chosen  from  the  West 
side,  but  he  states  that  he  has  had  no  difficulty  in  securing  ade- 
quate provision  for  the  needs  of  that  section.  Bohemian-Ameri- 
cans, constituting  probably  a  fourth  of  the  population  of  Cedar 
Rapids,  have  not  a  member  of  their  nationality  on  the  board  of 
commissioners,  yet  persons  of  Bohemian  parentage  have  been  ap- 
pointed to  places  in  the  city  government,  on  their  merits,  and  their 
section  of  the  city  has  received  its  share  of  appropriations  for 
paving,  water  mains  and  street  lighting.  One  of  the  first  things 
done  by  the  new  commission  in  Cedar  Rapids  was  to  extend 
sewerage  and  water  connections  to  a  large  Bohemian  Catholic 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  257 

church,  which  had  never  been  able  to  secure  them  under  the 
former  council.  Nor  has  there  been  favoritism  as  to  wards  in 
Houston  or  Galveston  or  Huntingdon  or  Leavenworth  or 
Wichita  or  Lewiston  or  Dallas,  so  far  as  can  be  learned.  The 
fact  that  every  voter  in  the  city  is  a  constituent  of  each  com- 
missioner tends  to  correct  any  danger  from  possible  over-repre- 
sentation of  any  one  section. 

If  election  at  large  rather  than  by  wards  tends  to  result  in  the 
choice  of  better  councilmen  (commissioners),  the  payment  to 
them  of  reasonable  salaries  makes  it  possible  for  them  to  give 
to  their  municipal  duties  their  entire  time  or  such  part  of  their 
time  as  may  be  required,  without  too  great  financial  sacrifice. 
Whatever  the  case  in  England  and  Germany  and  France,  Ameri- 
can municipal  directors  must  be  paid.  Whether  they  should  give 
their  entire  time  or  not  is  more  of  a  question.  The  salaries  pro- 
vided in  the  various  state  laws  are  usually  arranged  on  a  sliding 
scale,  varying  with  the  size  of  the  city  to  be  governed ;  the  char- 
ters specifically  provide,  in  most  instances,  the  amount  to  be  paid. 
The  range  of  salaries  is  considerable;  the  usual  provision  is  for 
an  annual  amount,  to  be  drawn  in  monthly  installments.  A  com- 
parison of  the  salaries  of  city  commissioners  (or  councilmen), 
including  the  mayor,  would  be  of  interest,  but  is  of  minor  moment 
and  is  omitted  here  in  order  to  present  more  important  features. 

In  all  Texas  cities  the  term  of  the  commissioners  is  two  years 
as  is  the  case  with  the  Iowa  law,  the  Kansas  law  for  cities  of  the 
first  class  and  the  charters  of  Lewiston  (Idaho), 
High  Point  (N.  C),  and  Haverhill  (Mass.). 
The  Kansas  law  for  cities  of  the  second  class  provides  for  a 
three-year  term,  one  commissioner  being  chosen  each  year.  The 
term  of  office  of  the  commissioners  of  Huntington,  W.  Va.,  as 
well  as  of  members  of  the  Citizens'  Board,  which  is  provided  as  a 
check,  is  three  years.  Under  the  laws  of  North  Dakota,  South 
Carolina,  Memphis,  and  Bluefield,  W.  Va.,  the  term  is  four  years, 
while  in  South  Dakota  the  term  is  five  years  and  in  Wisconsin, 
six  years  for  mayor  and  four  years  for  each  of  the  two  coun- 
cilmen. In  Berkeley,  Calif.,  the  mayor  and  auditor  are  elected 
for  two  years,  while  every  two  years  two  councilmen  and  two 
school  directors  are  elected  for  a  four-year  term,  there  being  a 


258  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

mayor  and  four  councilmen  besides  the  auditor.  In  Mississippi 
and  Minnesota  there  is  no  provision  as  to  term  or  method  of 
election  further  than  to  specify  election  at  large. 

The  continued  re-election  of  commissioners  has  lengthened 
their  actual  term  in  office  in  several  cities,  particularly  in  Gal- 
veston  and  Houston. 

All  of  the  commissioners  are  usually  elected  at  the  same  time, 
but  there  are  exceptions,  as  already  seen.  In  Marshall,  .Texas, 
two  commissioners  are  elected  one  year  for  a  two-years'  term, 
and  the  next  year  the  chairman  (mayor)  and  city  secretary  for  a 
two-year  term.  In  Lewiston,  Idaho,  the  mayor  and  three  coun- 
cilmen are  elected  each  odd  year  for  two  years ;  and  in  each  even 
year  the  other  three  councilmen  for  two  years.  In  Bluefield,  W. 
Va.,  two  (of  four  commissioners)  are  elected  for  four  years;  two 
years  later,  the  other  two  are  elected  for  four  years.  Similarly 
in  Grand  Junction,  Colorado  Springs  and  Tacoma,  and  in  the 
laws  of  North  Dakota  and  South  Carolina,  the  mayor  is  elected 
with  two  commissioners  every  four  years  for  a  four-year  term 
and  the  other  two  commissioners  elected  two  years  later  for  * 
four-year  term.  Under  the  Wisconsin  law  the  mayor  holds  office 
for  six  years  and  the  two  commissioners  for  four  years  each, 
one  being  elected  each  alternate  second  year.  In  South  Dakota 
one  commissioner  of  the  five  is  elected  each  year  for  a  five-year 
term.  In  Kentucky,  the  mayor  is  elected  for  four  years  and  the 
other  four  commissioners  for  two  years  each;  two  years  later,  a 
police  judge  is  elected  for  four  years  and  the  four  commissioners 
for  two  years  again.  In  Haverhill,  the  mayor,  two  aldermen 
and  two  members  of  the  school  committee  are  elected  each  even- 
numbered  year  for  two  years,  while  the  two  other  aldermen  and 
the  two  other  members  of  the  school  committee  are  elected  each 
odd-numbered  year  for  the  same  length  of  term. 

The  qualifications  for  commissioners  range  from  the  provisions 

of  the  Texas  cities,  requiring  each  member  of  the  governing  board 

to  be  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  a  quali- 

Qnalifications         fied  voter>  a  resident  of  the  city  previously  for 

and  Restrictions  ,   •  i          r  /•  i    ' 

of  Commissioners  a  certam  number  of  years   (m  some  charters> 

of  twenty-five  years  of  age,  a  property  owner, 

and  not  in  arrears  for  taxes,  and  in  one  instance,  not  a  stock- 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  259 

holder  or  director  of  any  public-service  corporation  having  a  city 
contract  or  franchise),  to  that  of  Grand  Junction,  Colo.,  where 
the  only  provision  is  that  the  commissioner  shall  be  a  qualified 
elector.  In  such  a  limited  space  as  is  here  available,  it  is  not  prac- 
ticable to  discuss  the  subject  in  detail,  nor  is  it  of  great  relative 
impcrtance. 

The  requirements  demanded  of  the  commissioners  besides  the 
prescribed  qualifications,  include  frequently  the  giving  of  a  bond 
and  prohibit  the  holding  of  more  than  one  office  or  of  any  office 
the  compensation  of  which  has  been  increased  during  the  commis- 
sioner's term.  The  most  definite  and  drastic  provision  and  one 
found  in  the  majority  of  the  commission  charters,  is  that  pro- 
hibiting a  commissioner  or  councilman  from  having  any  financial 
interest  in  city  contracts.  The  receiving  of  free  passes,  tickets  or 
gifts  of  substantial  value  from  public  service  or  other  corpora- 
tions is  also  prohibited  in  many  instances.  These  are  no  essen- 
tial part  of  a  commission  charter  but  are  usually  present. 

As  to  whether  the  commissioners  should  be  required  to  give 

all  their  time  to  their  municipal  duties,  or  only  part  time,  there 

is  a  decided  conflict  of  opinion.     Sentiment  in 

Should  Commis-     Galveston  strongly  favors  requiring  only  part 

time,  since  very  able  men  can  be  secured  as  com- 
their  Entire  .  ..  J. 

Time?  missioners,  if  they  can  be  allowed  to  devote  only 

a  small  share  of  their  attention  to  city  business. 
On  the  other  hand,  Houston,  Des  Moines  and  other  cities  re- 
quire the  entire  time  of  their  council  members  (commissioners). 
This  provision,  in  connection  with  longer  terms  of  office,  may 
tend  to  make  municipal  commissionerships  become  a  profession, 
since  an  able  man  cannot  afford  to  leave  his  business  and  devote 
all  of  his  time  to  city  affairs  if  he  is  likely  to  be  retired  at  the  end 
of  two  or  four  years.  The  commissioner  becomes  more  ex- 
perienced and  valuable  the  more  time  he  gives  to  the  work  and 
the  longer  he  is  a  commissioner.  The  tendency  is  strongly  in  the 
direction  of  longer  terms  and  with  the  advent  of  the  commis- 
sion plan  generally  throughout  the  country,  a  new  and  valuable 
field  of  governmental  service  will  be  established,  as  in  Germany, 
of  which  men  will  make  a  vocation,  and  which  will  take  the  prin- 
cipal part  of  their  energy  and  time. 


200  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

The  municipal  business  of  most  small  cities  does  not  need  the 
services  of  five  men  or  three  men  for  seven  or  eight  hours  each 
day.  Part  time  is  now  the  rule,  and  is  possibly  best.  The  pres- 
ent council  system  offers  an  extreme  example  of  service  for  part 
time  only ;  night  sessions  are  usual,  and  meetings  often  only  once 
a  month.  Much  more  attention  may  well  be  required  and 
still  not  all  the  day  of  the  municipal  director  be  occupied  in  the 
care  of  city  business. 

If  the  larger  city  were  fairly  sure  of  being  able  to  elect  some 
of  its  best  business  men  to  its  governing  board,  as  in  Galves- 
ton,  it  could  be  provided  that  members  might  be  elected  at  a 
low  salary  to  give  part  time,  or  at  a  high  salary  to  give  all  of 
their  time,  that  point  to  be  settled  at  the  time  of  nomination.  If 
the  voters  preferred  Mr.  A,  a  most  capable  bank  manager  or 
manufacturer,  who  was  willing  to  give  part  of  his  time  at  $3,- 
ooo  a  year,  rather  than  Mr.  B,  a  less  able  man,  though  cap- 
able, at  $6,000  a  year,  to  give  all  of  his  time,  let  them  so  in- 
dicate on  the  nominating  ballot.  Besides  the  names  of  candi- 
dates, columns  for  "  time  required  "  and  "  salary  ",  opposite  each 
name  would  appear  on  the  ballot,  in  that  case.  This  plan  would 
not  shut  out  the  first-class  business  man,  whose  experience  would 
be  most  helpful  to  the  city,  but  who  cannot  afford  for  four  or  five 
thousand  dollars  a  year  to  devote  all  of  his  energies  to  the  city's 
affairs  while  he  can  make  several  times  as  much  in  his  own  busi- 
ness. 

The  present  time  requirements  in  commission  cities  are  as 
follows : 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD 


26l 


TIME  REQUIRED  OF  COMMISSIONERS. 
Date  of  grant  of  charter  or  passage  of  state  law  in  parenthesis. 


Entire  Time. 
Houston  (1905),' 
Dallas  (1907), 
Ft.  Worth  (1907), 
Greenville  (1907), 
Grand  Junction, 

Col.  (1909), 
McAlester,  Ok.  (1910), 
Kansas  (Cities  of  1st 

class  ),b 
Iowa  (1907),° 
New  Mexico,* 
Wisconsin  (1909).' 


Summary — 6  charters,  3 
state  laws — in  all,  22  cities. 


Part  Time. 
Galveston  (igoi),* 
Marshall,  Tex.  (1909),' 
Corpus  Christi  (1909), 
Denison  (1907),* 
High  Point,  N.  C. 

(1909), 8 

Colorado  Springs  (1909)  ,h 
Tacoma  (igio),11 
Huntington,  W.  Va. 

(1909),* 
Bluefield,  W.  Va. 

(1909),* 

Muskogee,  Ok.  (1910),' 
Oakland,  Calif.," 
South  Carolina  (1910).* 


II    charters    and    one 
state  law — in  all,  1 2  cities. 


No  Provision. 
Austin  (1909), 
Palestine  (1909), 
Waco  (1909), 
Lewiston,  Ida.  (1907), 
Memphis  (1909), 
Gloucester  (1908), 
Haverhill  (1908), 
Lynn  (1910), 
Colorado  Springs  (1909), 
Berkeley,  Calif.  ("1909), 
San  Diego,  Calif.  (1909), 
Kansas  (Cities  of  2d 

class)  (i909),k 
Minnesota  (1909),' 
North  Dakota  (1907),"" 
Mississippi  (igoS),1 
South  Dakota  (1907),* 
Louisiana  (1910). 
ii    charters   and   6  state 
laws — in  all,  37  cities. 


•  All  the  commissioners,  including  the  mayor,  give  their  entire  time. 

bln  cities  of  over  60,000  population  all  the  commissioners  give  their  entire  time; 
in  cities  of  30,000-60,000,  mayor  gives  at  least  6  hours  a  day ;  applies  to  cities  of 
Leavenworth,  Topeka,  Wichita,  Kansas  City  (Kans.),  Hutchinson,  Pittsburg  and 
Emporia. 

•  Applies  to  Des  Moines,  Cedar  Rapids,  Sioux  City,  Keokuk,  Burlington,  Marshall- 
town  and  Ft.  Dodge. 

d  Commissioners  "  shall  not  be  otherwise  employed." 

•  Mayor,  6  hours  a  day.    No  provision  as  to  other  commissioners;  they  are  •up- 
posed  in  actual  practice  to  give  an  hour  a  day. 

f  Mayor,  entire  time;  other  commissioners,  as  much  time  as  necessary. 

•  As  much  time  as  necessary. 
h  Regular  office  hours. 

1  Public  office  and  stated  hours. 

J  No  provision  in  its  law,  but  only  part  time  in  practice.     Applies  to  Pierre,  Huron, 
Yankton,  Rapid  City,  Dell  Rapids,  Sioux  Falls  and  Vermillion. 
k  Applies  to  thirteen  cities. 
1  Applies  to  one  city. 
10  Applies  to  three  cities. 

•  Charter  framed,  but  not  yet  approved  by  legislature. 


262  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

III.  The  most  vital  and  effective  element  in  the  commission  form 
of  government  is  not  the  small  number  of  the  governing  body, 
as  important  as  that  feature  is,  nor  the  election  of  the  members 
at  large,  helpful  though  that  provision  is  proving  to  be,  but  the 
amplitude  of  the  powers  conferred  upon  the  commission,  the  as- 
signment of  each  commissioner  to  a  department,  and  the  suffi- 
ciency of  the  checks  provided  to  assure  popular  control.  These 
third,  fourth  and  fifth  elements,  as  they  have 

been  numbered  here,  are  so  basic  in  their  na- 
Commission 

ture,  that  though  they  do  not  at  first  seem  of 

unusual  moment,  they  prove  upon  examination  to  include  the 
first  and  second  features,  already  noted,  and  to  comprise  the 
essence  of  two  broad  principles,  which  are  both  present  in  the 
term  "  responsible  authority."  This  connotes  at  once  power  and 
accountability, — the  capacity  to  accomplish  and  the  possibility  of 
a  penalty  for  a  failure  to  accomplish.  Election  at  large  is  sim- 
ply a  kind  of  check  beforehand, — a  method  of  insuring  the  choice 
of  men  who  will  represent  the  city  as  a  whole,  rather  than  a 
number  representing  a  multiplicity  of  parts.  Provision  for  a 
small  board  is  the  same  sort  of  prior  restriction  in  order  that 
voters  may  choose  a  few  officials  intelligently  rather  than  select, 
without  thought,  a  larger  number.  These  are  but  parts  of  the 
second  half  of  the  equation, — methods  of  enforcing  responsibility 
by  determining  in  advance  the  conditions  of  choosing  public 
servants.  These  prior  checks  have  been  considered;  it  will  be 
in  order  in  a  later  chapter  to  discuss  those  methods  of  control 
enforceable  after  election.  It  is  now  proper  to  present  the 
positive  side  of  government, — that  of  the  powers  bestowed  upon 
those  who  must  act  in  a  collective  capacity, — those  who  must  pass 
laws  and  administer  them  in  behalf  of  the  people.  What  power 
has  been  exercised,  in  cities,  under  the  mayor-and-council  plan, 
by  the  council,  and  what  under  the  newer  commission  system  may 
fittingly  be  contrasted.  It  may  be  that  here  will  be  found  some 
explanation  of  the  unusual  success  which  has  so  far  attended  the 
operation  of  the  latter  method  of  government. 

In  the  United  States,  the  state  legislature  confers  upon  cities 
the  right  to  exercise  certain  functions,  these  being  specified  usu- 
ally in  the  charter  granted  to  the  city.  These  "  powers,"  or 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  263 

more  correctly,  fields  of  activity,  include  the  right  to  levy  taxes, 
borrow  money,  issue  bonds,  lay  out  streets,  establish  markets, 
hospitals,  libraries,  schools,  enact  building  regulations,  grant 
franchises,  and  in  many  cases,  acquire  and  operate  water  works 
and  other  public  utilities.  At  some  time  in  the  future,  the  state 
may  recognize  more  clearly  a  proper  general  municipal  field,  and 
it  may  not  be  necessary  for  cities  to  have  specified  in  such  detail 
what  they  may  do;  nor  to  have  to  go  to  the  legislature  for  every 
new  small  grant  of  municipal  power.  Home  rule  for  cities, 
however,  is  not  the  theme  of  this  discourse,  nor  does  the  field  of 
activity  of  the  city  under  the  commission  differ  from  that  under 
the  ordinary  council.  In  this  respect,  it  is  well  to  sharply  dis- 
tinguish the  "  powers  "  of  the  city — that  is,  the  fields  in  which 
it  may  act, — from  the  "  powers  "  of  the  governing  body ;  that  is, 
the  authority  which  it  may  exercise  within  the  fields  of  activity 
permitted  to  the  city.  When  we  say  that  the  council  exercises 
legislative  power,  we  mean  that  it  makes  laws  (ordinances), 
on  those  subjects  which  the  state  allows  cities  to  control;  ad- 
ministrative power  means  the  right  to  enforce  or  carry  out  those 
laws  or  regulations  on  those  same  subjects.  The  powers  of  the 
coun'cil  are  greater  if  it  is  allowed  to  exercise  both  administrative 
and  legislative  authority, — and  frequently  in  addition  the  power 
to  appoint  city  officials, — than  if  it  exercises  legislative  authority 
only;  but  the  powers  of  the  city — that  is,  the  field  within  which 
it  can  act,  may  remain  the  same.  What  is  meant  by  the  "  ample 
powers  "  conferred  on  the  small  commission-council  under  the 
commission  plan  is  that  this  small  board  exercises  not  only  the 
usual  ordinance-making  power,  but  also  oversees  the  adminis- 
trative departments  of  the  city  and  appoints  the  officers.  It 
decides  (by  ordinance),  what  shall  be  done,  appoints  the  men 
to  do  it  (all  the  department  subordinates  and  employees),  and 
sees  that  it  is  done.  Each  member  of  the  commission  is  the  chief 
of  a  department.  The  board  exercises  administrative  control  over 
all  the  departments  by  being  itself  the  administrative  head  of  the 
government,  subdividing  the  work  among  its  members,  but  all  the 
more  effectively  controlling  action.  Ample  power?  It  recalls 
the  business  corporation. 

The  powers  of  the  commission   may  be  considered  first   in 


264  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

general  and  then  under  the  heads  of  ordinance  power,  adminis- 
trative authority,  and  appointing  power  (considered  broadly  and 
including  power  to  create  new  offices,  fix  salaries,  and  prescribe 
duties).  It  should  be  remembered,  in  passing,  that  this  dis- 
cussion does  not  properly  have  to  do  with  what  functions  the 
city  should  be  allowed  by  the  legislature  to  exercise,  but  how 
much  of  the  power  already  marked  out  as  belonging  to  the  city 
is  exercised  by  the  commission  and  in  what  manner. 

The  board  is  given  by  most  charters,  the  general  powers 
formerly  exercised  by  mayor  and  council  and  the  heads  of  de- 
partments. The  council  (commission),  under  the  Iowa  law 
possesses  "  all  executive,  legislative  and  judicial  powers  and 
duties  now  had,  possessed  and  exercised  by  the  mayor,  city 
council,  solicitor,  assessor,  treasurer,  auditor,  and  other  executive 
and  administrative  officers,  ...  by  the  board  of  public  works, 
park  commissioners,  the  board  of  police  and  fire  commissioners," 
etc.  "  The  board  of  commissioners,"  runs  the  Kansas  law  for 
cities  of  the  first  class,  "  shall  constitute  the  municipal  govern- 
ment of  such  city  and  shall  be  the  successors  of  the  Mayor  and 
council " ;  and  "  said  board  of  commissioners  shall  have  and  ex- 
ercise all  such  rights,  powers  and  duties  as  are  conferred  upon  it 
by  this  act,  and  such  other  powers,  rights  and  duties  as  are  now, 
or  shall  be  hereafter  conferred  by  the  laws  of  the  State  of  Kansas 
upon  the  Mayors  and  councils  of  the  cities  of  the  first  class,  not 
in  conflict  with  the  provisions  of  this  act."  *  The  South  Carolina 
law  grants  to  the  board  all  legislative,  executive  and  judicial 
powers  and  duties  conferred  upon  the  city.  The  Galveston 
charter  provides  that  "  the  board  of  commissioners  shall  have  and 
exercise  all  the  rights,  powers  and  duties  of  the  mayor  and  board 
of  aldermen  of  cities,  as  may  be  conferred  by  the  constitution 
and  laws  of  this  state,  and  ...  all  the  rights,  powers  and  duties 
conferred  upon  them  or  either  of  them  by  the  terms  of  this 
Act "  2  and  further  the  board  "  shall  have  control  and  supervision 
over  all  the  departments  of  said  city."  3  Not  only  the  authority 
formerly  exercised  by  mayor  and  council,  but  additional  powers 
set  forth  in  the  charter  or  state  law  are  granted  to  the  Board 

1  Section    23.  *  Section    6.  •  Section    12. 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  265 

or  commission.  This  additional  authority  lies  not  in  the  field 
of  making  and  passing  ordinances,  which  is  the  usual  legislative 
function  of  the  council  (and  mayor,)  but  in  the  matter  of  ap- 
pointments, and  in  administrative  control. 

The  appointing  power   is   here  used   broadly   to   include   the 
power  (i)  to  appoint  and  remove  all,  or  prac- 

tically  a11'  °f  the  subordinate  officers  and  em- 
ployees of  the  city;  (2)  the  power  to  create  new 
offices  and  discontinue  them,  and  (3)  the  power  to  fix  salaries, 
(except  those  of  the  commissioners  themselves),  to  prescribe 
duties  and  to  transfer  officers  or  change  their  duties. 

Under  nearly  all  of  the  commission  charters,  the  commission 
is  given  the  right  to  appoint  the  city  treasurer,  attorney,  as- 
sessor and  collector  of  taxes,  chief  of  police,  chief  of  the  fire 
department,  city  engineer,  superintendent  of  water  works,  and 
similar  municipal  officers. 

The  Galveston  board  is  given  authority  to  appoint,  by  ma- 
jority vote  of  all  the  members,  all  officers  and  subordinates  in  all 
departments  of  the  city  and  to  remove  any  officer  or  employee, 
with  or  without  cause.  The  police  and  fire  commissioner  is  al- 
lowed to  recommend  or  nominate  persons  for  appointment  in  the 
police  and  fire  departments,  while  the  board  as  a  whole  has  the 
power  of  final  selection.  A  similar  provision  exists  in  the  Ft. 
Worth  charter.  At  Galveston  the  chief  of  the  police  and  fire 
department  is  also  given  power  to  temporarily  suspend  any  sub- 
ordinate in  his  department;  while  at  Ft.  Worth  the  police  and 
fire  commissioner  is  given  the  right  to  employ  policemen  and 
firemen  and  to  discharge  them  at  his  discretion,  provided  only 
his  action  does  not  conflict  with  the  regulations  of  the  Board  of 
Commissioners.  The  power  to  appoint  and  remove  is  generally 
given  to  the  board,  officers  formerly  elected  now  being  ap- 
pointed by  the  board.  This  is  true  of  the  Iowa  law,  of  the 
Kansas  law,  (both  for  first  and  second  class  cities),  of  the  laws 
of  Wisconsin,  North  Dakota,  South  Dakota,  South  Carolina, 
and  Mississippi;  it  is  also  the  case  in  Lewiston,  Idaho,  Blue- 
field,  W.  Va.,  Haverhill  and  Gloucester,  Mass.,  and  Berkeley 
and  San  Diego,  Calif. 

Nomination  by  the  mayor,  subject  to  confirmation  by  the  rest 


266  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

of  the  board,  is  the  rule  in  Houston,  Dallas,  Denison,  Waco  and 
Palestine,  Tex.  In  Memphis,  each  commissioner  nominates  the 
subordinates  in  his  department,  the  Board  electing  them;  a  simi- 
lar provision,  substantially,  exists  in  the  charter  of  Grand  Junc- 
tion, Colo.  Removal  is  by  the  mayor  alone  or  by  the  council 
in  Houston  and  Denison;  and  by  the  head  of  the  department, 
with  the  consent  of  the  mayor,  in  Palestine.  In  Colorado  Springs 
each  commissioner  recommends  officers  in  his  department;  the 
mayor  appoints  them;  day  laborers  and  unskilled  workmen  in 
each  department  are  employed  and  discharged  by  the  commis- 
sioner in  charge  of  that  department.  In  Tacoma,  each  chief  of 
a  department  appoints  and  removes  in  his  own  department,  ex- 
cept the  mayor,  who  appoints  in  his  own  department,  subject  to 
confirmation  by  the  council  as  a  whole. 

The  power  to  create  new  offices,  to  appoint  their  incumbents 
and  to  discontinue  and  abolish  such  offices  at  will,  are  pro- 
visions which  add  greatly  to  the  efficiency  of  a  city  government. 
They  are  found  in  nearly  all  the  commission  plans,  as  are  also 
provisions  granting  power  to  the  board  to  fix  the  salaries,  pre- 
scribe and  alter  the  duties  and  assign  further  duties,  which  are 
also  present  in  a  great  number  of  charters.  These  enable  the 
board  to  shift  their  officers  and  subordinates  into  more  suitable 
places  and  to  transfer  duties,  when  necessary,  thus  insuring  a 
considerable  degree  of  elasticity. 

Not  only  large  appointing  power  but  administrative  oversight 
of  a  comprehensive  and  far-reaching  character  is  given  by  specific 

provision  of  the  charter  or  state  law,  in  most 

Administrative  ,1  •    •  -1.1 

c     ,    ,  cases,  to  the  commission  or  council ;  at  the  same 

time,  in  practically  all  instances  the  individual 
commissioners  are  heads  of  departments.  The  board  of  com- 
missioners, provide  the  Galveston  and  Ft.  Worth  charters,  "  shall 
have  control  and  supervision  over  all  the  departments  of  said 
city,  and  to  that  end  shall  have  power  to  make  and  enforce  such 
rules  and  regulations  as  they  may  see  fit  and  proper  for  .... 
the  organization,  management  and  operation  of  all  the  depart- 
ments of  said  city,  and  whatever  agencies  may  be  created  for  the 
administration  of  its  affairs." 

"  Said  commissioners,"  says   the   Dallas  charter,  "  shall  per- 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  267 

form  all  of  the  executive  duties  of  the  respective  departments 
to  which  they  may  be  assigned,  as  above  provided,  but  said  board, 
*w  a  -whole,  shall  have  supervision  of,  and  be  responsible  for,  the 
administration  of  each  of  said  departments."  Substantially  the 
same  provision  occurs  in  the  charter  of  Austin,  Tex. 

The  power  of  the  board  or  the  mayor  to  assign  the  depart- 
ments tends  to  make  the  commission  still  more  of  a  unit  in  its 
responsibility  to  the  voters,  enabling  it  to  control  any  individual 
member. 

In  connection  with  its  other  duties  the  commission  is  given  au- 
thority to  levy  taxes,   to  vote  appropriations  and,  in  general, 
a  broad  control  of  the  finances  of  the  munici- 
Financialand        pality.     Making  up  the  annual  budget  of  ex- 
Other  Powers  of    penditures  is  thus  placed  in  the  hands  Of  the 
the  Commission  .    .  ...  .     , 

commission,     bach  commissioner  is  required  to 

submit,  usually  to  the  mayor,  thirty  or  sixty  days  before  the  time 
of  making  up  the  budget,  estimates  of  the  amounts  which  will  be 
needed  during  the  ensuing  year  to  properly  run  his  department, 
and  the  revenues  which  his  department  can  probably  be  counted 
on  to  yield.  The  mayor  submits  all  the  estimates  so  made  to  the 
board  as  a  whole,  which  determines  the  amount  of  expenditures, 
the  tax  rate,  and  the  allotment  to  each  department.  Extrava- 
gance of  expenditure  is  to  be  prevented  by  the  provision  found  in 
many  charters  that  the  total  amount  appropriated  by  the  budget 
shall  not  exceed  the  estimated  income.  Another  clause  frequently 
included  provides  that  after  the  appropriations  are  once  fixed  they 
cannot  be  increased,  unless  the  income  estimated  has  been  ex- 
ceeded by  actual  receipts.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  Memphis  charter, 
the  board  is  allowed  to  spend  more  in  one  department  than  at  first 
estimated  if  the  amount  be  taken  from  other  departments,  the 
total  expenditures  not  exceeding  that  at  first  agreed  upon. 

In  Colorado  Springs,  Lewiston  (Idaho),  and  in  several  other 
cities,  the  mayor  may  veto  separate  items  in  appropriation  meas- 
ures. Careful  auditing  of  the  accounts  of  the  departments  is  pro- 
vided for  in  some  charters;  some  requiring  an  annual  examina- 
tion of  the  city's  accounts  and  authorizing  the  mayor  to  appoint 
experts  to  make  such  examination. 

The  board  of  commissioners   frequently  acts  as   a  board  to 


268  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

equalize  the  assessment  of  taxes ;  and  sometimes  sits  as  a  civil-ser- 
vice commission. 

The  powers  of  the  commission,  therefore,  are  much  greater 
than  those  of  the  usual  city  council,  including,  as  they  do,  close 
administrative  oversight  as  well  as  legislative  authority,  the 
appointment  of  subordinate  executive  officers,  and  the  exercise  of 
such  financial  and  incidental  powers  as  are  necessary.  Yet 
such  concentration  of  control  has  proved  most  successful  in  the 
field  of  business,  where  similar  problems  of  organization  have  to 
be  met  and  efficient  collective  action  taken  in  behalf  of  a  large 
group  of  interested  members  of  the  corporation. 

Glance  for  a  moment  at  the  method  of  governing  the  Ameri- 
can railroad  or  manufacturing  company.  A  body  of  stock- 
holders elect  annually  a  board  of  directors.  This  board  of  di- 
rectors usually  includes  many,  if  not  all  of  the  executive  officers 
of  the  company — the  president,  vice-president,  general  manager, 
treasurer  and  some  members  who  are  not  engaged  in  the  active 
work  of  superintending  the  operations  of  the  company.  This 
board  of  directors  elects  the  officers,  decides  who  shall  be  presi- 
dent, who  shall  keep  the  funds,  and  who  shall  be  the  active  man- 
ager. The  board  determines  the  policy  to  be  followed  during  the 
ensuing  year,  deciding  what  new  tracks  shall  be  built,  what  new 
rolling  stock  must  be  purchased,  whether  or  not  to  raise  rates; 
or,  if  a  manufacturing  company,  what  methods  to  follow  in  re- 
ducing the  cost  of  production,  in  marketing  their  products,  in 
meeting  competition.  As  the  year  advances,  the  board  looks 
sharply  after  the  outcome  of  their  plans;  it  sees  that  a  certain 
amount  of  work  is  done  by  a  given  time ;  it  insists  upon  securing 
the  results  anticipated.  Each  of  the  executive  members  of  the 
board  acts  as  the  head  of  a  division  of  the  work.  The  board, 
collectively  and  by  individuals,  is  exercising  administrative  con- 
trol ;  it  has  determined  the  policy  of  the  company,  that  is,  acted 
in  a  legislative  capacity;  and  has  selected  its  chiefs  of  divisions 
by  virtue  of  its  appointive  power.  The  strong,  virile,  successful 
business  corporation  combines  the  powers  which  our  theories  of 
government  have  so  carefully  attempted  to  keep  apart.  The 
commission  plan  has  drawn  straight  from  American  business  ex- 
perience its  essential  elements  of  success,  discarding,  so  far  as 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  269 

city  government  is  concerned,  the  theory  of  the  strict  separation 
of  powers,  which  should  never  have  been  applied  to  cities,  since 
their  main  functions  are,  and  have  long  been,  of  a  nature  similar 
to  those  of  business  corporations. 

IV.  A  fourth  characteristic  present  in  all  commission  types  ex- 
amined is  the  assignment  of  each  commissioner  to  be  the  head  of 
a  definite  department,  for  the  conduct  of  which 
Each  Commis-        jje  js  responsible  to  the  commission,  and  to  some 
sioner  Head  of  a          m   directj        ^  j 

Department 

"  The  work  of  the  municipality  shall  be  di- 
vided into  departments,  with  one  of  the  commissioners  at  the  head 
of  each  department,"  is  the  simple  wording  of  the  Mississippi 
law.  These  two  features  seem  to  go  together — the  collective  re- 
sponsibility of  the  board  for  the  efficient  administration  of  city 
affairs,  and  the  individual  responsibility  of  the  separate  mem- 
bers as  heads  of  the  administrative  departments.  The  charter 
of  Galveston  provides:  "they  shall,  by  majority  vote  of  all  said 
Commissioners,  designate  from  among  their  members  one  Com- 
missioner who  shall  be  known  as  '  police  and  fire  commissioner'  " ; 
and  one  commissioner  to  be  head  of  each  of  the  other  depart- 
ments ;  while  that  of  Ft.  Worth  adds  the  words :  "  it  being  the 
purpose  of  this  act  to  charge  each  commissioner  in  control  of  a 
department  with  its  management,  and  to  fix  directly  upon  him 
the  responsibility  for  its  proper  conduct."  4 

In  general,  the  commissioners  exercise  approximately  equal 
authority,  each  in  his  separate  office,  except  the  mayor,  who  will 
receive  special  mention. 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  commissioners  do  not  look  after 
the  details  of  the  work  of  the  departments;  they  have  superin- 
tendents who  do  all  this.  The  commissioner  of  water,  lighting 
and  sewerage  has  a  superintendent  of  water  works,  a  superin- 
tendent of  lighting,  an  electrical  inspector  and  an  inspector  of 
plumbing,  under  his  direction.  The  commissioner  of  streets  and 
public  improvements  has  foremen  in  charge  of  paving,  cleaning, 
sidewalk  construction,  grading — differing  in  number  and  duties 
with  the  size  of  the  city  and  the  amount  of  work  to  be  done.  The 
office  of  commissioner  of  finance  usually  includes  the  assessor 

4  Chapter  2,  Section  16. 


270  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

and  collector  of  taxes,  and  the  auditor,  with  their  necessary  as- 
sistants and  clerks.  The  commissioners  have  only  the  larger 
aspects  of  the  city's  work  to  deal  with.  They  are  managers,  and 
together  constitute  a  managing  board. 

The  mayor  is  a  member  of  the  board,  and  presides  at  its 
meetings,  with  the  right  to  vote  on  all  questions.  He  signs  ordi- 
nances, contracts  and  warrants  on  the  treasury, 
and  performs  other  ministerial  acts.  He  also 
usually  possesses  certain  emergency  powers,  such  as  the  right  to 
summon  special  policemen  in  times  of  riot  or  epidemic.  He 
presents  the  budget  to  the  council.  He  calls  special  meetings  of 
the  board.  The  mayor  is  the  chief  executive  officer  of  the  city, 
in  which  capacity  he  frequently,  as  in  the  case  of  Des  Moines-, 
is  made  the  head  of  the  department  of  public  affairs,  having 
oversight  of  municipal  matters  as  a  whole,  and  having  under  his 
control  the  corporation  counsel  (city  attorney),  city  clerk  or  sec- 
retary, and  sometimes  one  or  two  additional  officers. 

The  distinctive  feature  of  the  mayor's  office,  in  the  commis- 
sion plan,  is  that  he  is  one  of  the  council,  voting,  but  having  lost 
the  veto  power  so  usual  under  the  aldermanic  form  of  govern- 
ment. Most  commission  charters  so  provide,  but  there  are  excep- 
tions. He  has  both  vote  and  veto  in  Houston,  Dallas,  Denison, 
Greenville,  Corpus  Christi,  and  in  Lewiston,  Idaho.  In  most  of 
these  cities  he  occupies  the  unusual  position  of  being  able  to  veto 
an  ordinance  passed  by  the  board,  and  then  as  a  member  of  the 
board  vote  not  to  overrule  his  own  veto.  As  it  usually  requires 
a  four-fifths  or  a  two-thirds  vote  to  override  a  veto,  the  mayor 
and  one  commissioner  can  control.  In  High  Point,  N.  C.,  the 
mayor  has  only  a  veto.  In  Colorado  Springs,  he  votes  but  has 
veto  also  on  appropriation  items.  Usually,  however,  the  veto 
power  has  been  transferred  to  the  voters  as  a  whole,  by  means 
of  the  referendum.  In  Huntingdon,  West  Virginia,  a  citizens' 
board  of  sixty-four  members  is  given  the  right  of  veto  on  ordi- 
nances ;  as  is  also  the  case  in  Bluefield. 

The  name  of  mayor  appears  in  Galveston  as  mayor-president, 
but  has  elsewhere  been  generally  retained  without  change.  In 
Marshall,  Texas,  he  is  known  as  the  chairman  of  the  board;  in 
North  Dakota,  as  the  president  of  the  board.  In  Grand  Junction, 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  271 

one  of  the  commissioners  is  designated  commissioner  of  public 
affairs,  and  is  ex-officio  mayor.  In  Colorado  Springs,  the  mayor 
is  commissioner  of  water  and  water  works ;  in  Memphis,  of  public 
affairs  and  health;  in  Tacoma,  public  affairs,  health  and  sani- 
tation. 

Broadly  considered,  the  office  of  mayor,  under  the  commission 
form  of  government,  is  merged  in  the  board,  whether  the  latter 
be  called  council  or  commission ;  the  mayor's  veto  generally  dis- 
appears ;  as  one  of  the  governing  board  he  has  equal  voting  power ; 
by  virtue  of  his  emergency  authority  and  his  general  oversight  of 
public  affairs,  his  position  is  somewhat  more  influential  than  that 
of  the  other  commissioners.  But  he  acts  as  a  part  of  the  ordi- 
nance-making body,  and  the  other  members  share  his  former  ad- 
ministrative control;  and  both  together  exercise  the  appointing 
power.  The  combination  of  these  three  functions,  together  with 
the  necessary  control  of  finances,  is  emphasized  from  whatever 
side  the  commission  system  is  approached. 

There  are  several  advantages  which  result  from  concentrating 
power  so  completely  in  the  hands  of  a  single  small  group.  First, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  voter  and  the  citizen  it  focusses  at- 
tention on  the  offices,  because  more  important,  and,  aside  from  the 
fewness  of  the  number  to  be  filled,  compels  a  knowledge  of  the 
candidates.  Further,  after  election,  the  public  can  remember 
who  the  commissioners  are;  the  simple  division  of  duties  is  an 
arrangement  that  the  citizen  with  a  complaint  or  an  inquiry  to 
make  finds  most  useful.  He  not  only  knows  who  is  in  charge  of 
a  department,  but  who  is  to  blame  if  bad  conditions  are  not  rem- 
edied. In  this  way,  not  only  is  the  commissioner  held  accountable 
to  the  board,  but  public  opinion  may  reach  down  through  the 
board  and  know  who  is  careless  among  the  commissioners. 
Usually,  however,  the  board  can  be  relied  upon  to  bring  an 
unsatisfactory  member  to  time  by  failure  to  approve  his  plans 
or  confirm  his  recommendations  for  appointments.  If  not,  there 
is  the  recall;  but  that  will  be  considered  later. 

The  board  itself,  moreover,  can  do  better  work  when  clothed 
with  sufficient  authority.  Nothing  blights  the  hopes  of  a  city 
boss  so  effectively  as  giving  the  governing  board  power  enough 
to  run  the  city's  affairs  without  his  help.  For,  indeed,  why  does 


2/2 

the  boss  exist?  With  municipal  authority  divided  among  mayor, 
councilmen,  and  elective  chief  of  police,  assessor,  attorney,  engi- 
neer and  other  officers  the  boss  gathers  up  the  loose  ends  of 
power  and  wields  them  for  his  own  benefit.  To  some  degree, 
he  unifies  the  city  government,  often  determining  upon  a  policy 
for  the  municipality  and  carrying  it  through  by  means  of  his 
control  of  all  the  divisions  of  official  authority.  He  may  thus 
perform  a  real  service  in  supplying  missing  cogs  in  the  ma- 
chinery, and  make  otherwise  disconnected  wheels  and  springs 
work  together  in  a  single  compact  municipal  mechanism.  But 
it  is  likely  to  be  also  a  political  machine,  operated  for  private 
benefit.  If  the  boss  actually  renders  a  useful  service  to  the  city, 
he  exacts  an  exorbitant  compensation  in  the  way  of  extravagance 
or  graft.  The  remedy  is  not  to  rail  at  the  boss,  but  to  secure  a 
new  piece  of  governmental  machinery,  which  shall  be,  to  begin 
with,  a  unit  in  itself  needing  no  "  expert "  boss  to  thrust  in 
needed  cogs  here  and  there  to  make  the  wheels  work.  The 
machinery  should  be  provided  with  direct  and  effective  starting 
and  regulating  levers,  so  that  control  may  be  easy  and  sure.  The 
controlling  levers,  in  the  city's  governmental  apparatus,  under 
the  commission  form,  are  the  referendum,  the  recall,  the  initiative 
and  similar  improved  appliances  which  are  being  included  in  most 
of  the  recently-constructed  municipal  machinery.  If  the  refer- 
endum is  a  brake,  the  initiative  is  a  starting  lever,  and  the  recall  a 
device  to  throw  a  defective  belt  off  the  pulley,  in  order  to  replace 
it  with  another.  This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  these  de- 
vices. 

V.  Not  only  is  it  important  that  sufficient  power  should  be  pos- 
sessed by  the  governing  body  to  enable  it  to  perform  its  duties 
well,  but  methods  of  control  must  also  be  provided  to  insure  con- 
trol by  the  people;  otherwise,  despotic  and  arbitrary  acts  of 
officials  have  no  remedy. 

The  "  checks  "  provided  in  the  commission  charters  include : 
(a)    publicity,    both    of    proceedings,    of   ordi- 
Balanc  ^  nances,  including  franchises  and  of  the  general 

and  financial  condition  of  the  city;  (b)  the  ref- 
erendum; (c)  the  initiative;  (d)  the  recall;  (e)  non-partisan 
primary  and  election  methods;  (f)  a  civil  service  commission; 
and  other  and  minor  provisions. 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  273 

Of  these  "  checks "  and  safe-guards,  some  appear  in  nearly 
every  charter,  while  others  occur  less  frequently.  The  following 
table  summarizes  the  principal  means  of  popular  control  provided 
in  the  different  charters  and  general  laws.  The  degree  of  pub- 
licity, the  extent  to  which  the  referendum  is  applicable,  the 
percentage  of  signatures  required  for  the  recall, — indeed,  nearly 
every  item  differs  in  some  respect  from  the  corresponding  pro- 
vision of  other  charters,  but  the  definite  presence  of  the  principle 
involved  is  sufficient  to  place  it  here  in  the  columns  "  publicity," 
"  referendum,"  or  wherever  it  may  belong.  The  details  of  the 
provisions  of  each  charter  cannot  here  be  presented,  for  lack 
of  space;  this  table  is  intended  as  a  broad  resume  of  all  the 
charters : 


274  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

SUMMARY  OK  "CHECKS"  PROVIDED  IN  COMMISSION  CHARTERS  AND  LAWS. 


City  Charters. 

Publicity. 

Referendum. 

Initiative. 

1 

V 

& 

Non-partisan 
Primaries. 

Civil  Service 
Commission. 

x 

x 

Fort  Worth  Texas  

Palestine  Texas  •••••  

M  arshall  ,  Texas  »  «  *..• 

Lewiston,  Idaho  •••••••    ........... 

i 

X2 

X* 

x» 

Bluefield,  West  Virginia  •••  ••• 

2 

i 

XJ 

Memphis,  Tennessee  •  

x 

High  Point  North  Carolina  «...  

x 

.H  averhill,  Massachusetts  *... 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Oakland   California*  •»••  

x 

x 

x 

x 

1  Mayor  and  council  have  power  to  provide  for  selection  of  agents,  officers  and 
employees  of  the  city  under  civil  service  rules. 

1 A  Citizen's  Board  exercises  both  referendum  and  recall. 

s  Board  of  Commissioners  acts  as  Civil  Service  Board. 

4  May  have  either  partisan  or  non-partisan  primaries,  in  accordance  with  state  con- 
stitution. 

'Charter  framed  and  adopted  by  the  city  (December,  1910),  though  not  yet  ap- 
proved by  State  Legislature. 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  275 

SUMMARY  OF  CHECKS  PROVIDED  IN  COMMISSION  CHARTERS  AND  LAWS — Concluded. 


State  Laws. 

Publicity. 

Referendum. 

Initiative. 

Recall. 

Non-partisan 
Primaries. 

Civil  Service 
Commission. 

X 

X 
X 
X 

X 
X 
X 
X 

X 

X 

~ 

X 

X 

« 

X 

X 
X 

> 

X 

~ 

Wisconsin  

Minnesota  

X 
X 

10 
X 

x 

X 
X 
X 

X 
X 
X 
X 

X 
X 

X 
X 

X 

X 
X 

X 
X 

X 
X 

X 

'  Non-partisan  primaries  allowed  only  in  cities  of  over  10,000  population. 
T  Any  city  adopting  the  commission  plan  may  include  this  feature. 

8  Civil  Service  Law  of  1895  may  be  applied  by  any  city. 

9  Applies  to  cities  of  less  than  10,000  population. 

10  State  laws  apply. 

Which  of  these  "  checks "  is  most  important  and  therefore 
most  necessary  of  inclusion  in  a  city  charter  is  a  question  dif- 
ficult to  answer,  because  there  is  no  means  of  determining  the 
value  of  each  safeguard  separately  with  any  degree  of  exactness. 
Publicity  features  are  certainly  indispensable,  for  the  public 
must  know  what  ordinances  are  passed  and  what  is  the  condi- 
tion of  the  city  in  its  many  departments,  in  order  to  intelligently 
use  any  of  the  other  safety  devices.  The  referendum  and  initia- 
tive naturally  go  together;  and  while  the  former  is  likely  to  be 
more  frequently  employed,  the  experience  of  Oregon  shows  that, 
in  state  affairs  at  least,  the  latter  will  not  be  unused.  The  two 
together  constitute  a  unit,  supplying  a  continuous  control  of 
legislation.  The  recall  is  of  no  less  value  for  its  continuous 
control  of  legislators, — in  a  municipality,  the  city  commissioners. 
Non-partisan  primary  and  election  features  seem  to  be  clearly 
helpful,  and  there  is  a  present  demand  for  a  municipal  civil  ser- 
vice in  connection  with  the  other  provisions.  While  it  is  pos- 


276  FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

sible  that  the  relative  importance  of  these  controlling  levers,  all 
of  which  are  in  the  nature  of  improvements,  is  about  in  the  order 
given,  one  will  scarcely  venture  a  dogmatic  conclusion  until  after 
a  longer  period  of  trial  has  supplied  more  data. 

The  broader  question  as  to  what  element  of  the  five  noted  as 
fundamental  parts  of  the  commission  form  is  most  essential  and 
the  cause  of  the  great  improvement  in  governmental  efficiency,  is 
of  much  greater  import.  It  is  even  more  difficult  to  answer.  Is 
it  more  important  to  give  the  governing  body  adequate  power  or 
to  hold  it  strictly  accountable  to  the  will  of  the  people?  How 
can  these  two  elements  be  separated?  Are  they  not  the  two 
sides  of  the  shield?  Should  not  power  and  responsibility  go 
together?  The  great  fault  of  the  aldermanic  system  is  that  not 
only  are  there  not  provided  adequate  means  for  holding  coun- 
cilmen  responsible  to  their  constituents,  but  there  is  not  enough 
power  granted  to  the  council  to  enable  it  to  direct  the  city's 
activities  rightly.  These  two  principles,  inseparably  connected, 
and  each  given  its  proper  weight,  lie  at  the  bottom  of  all  well- 
conducted  collective  enterprises,  corporate  or  governmental. 
The  commission  form  is  important  because  it  recognizes,  first, 
the  need  of  power  reasonably  centralized  and  hence  gives  the 
council  administrative  and  appointing  power  as  well  as  legis- 
lative authority;  and  second,  because  the  means  of  popular 
control  provided  are  direct  and  many:  publicity  of  proceedings 
of  council  or  commission:  means  of  referring  all  ordinances, 
including  franchises,  to  the  people:  means  of  bringing  a  public 
servant  up  sharply  for  a  vote  of  confidence  or  lack  of  con- 
fidence: means  of  eliminating  national  politics  from  municipal 
elections:  means  for  insuring  a  system  of  appointment  for  merit 
among  employees  and  assistants.  That  wards  are  abolished; 
that  the  councilmen  are  all  elected  by  all  the  voters;  these  are 
valuable  parts  of  the  plan,  but  not  the  most  im- 
lectoral  Control  portant  That  a  few  men  _a  body  of  five  or 

three  commissioners, — are  chosen  to  act  as  a  managing  board, 
instead  of  fifteen  or  twenty,  or  two  boards  of  thirty  or  forty 
each,  is  decidedly  better  for  both  the  voters,  who  have  fewer 
men  to  elect  and  for  the  commission,  which  becomes  a  smaller 
and  more  compact  body  for  action;  but  this  is  only  one  among 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD  277 

several  important  features.  Both  the  "  short  ballot "  and  elec- 
tion-at-large  are  safeguards  provided  in  the  system,  prior  to 
election,  and  hence  fundamental  in  determining  the  conditions 
under  which  officials  are  chosen;  yet  they  are  not  sufficient. 
Control  must  be  adequate  after  election,  also,  and  the  more  and 
better  the  means  of  control,  the  less  is  it  likely  that  there  will 
be  need  to  use  them.  The  other  important  element  of  control 
which  must  not  be  lost  sight  of, — closely  connected,  indeed,  with 
the  exercise  of  administrative  power  by  the  commission, — is 
the  division  of  duties  among  the  commissioners.  The  simple 
and  effective  method  of  putting  one  commissioner  in  charge  of 
each  department  at  once  conveniently  subdivides  the  work  and 
localizes  responsibility.  In  each  department,  employees  and  sub- 
ordinates and  assistants  and  chiefs  are  accountable  to  the  com- 
missioner ;  the  commissioner  is,  in  turn,  chargeable  to  the  entire 
board  for  his  department ;  and  both  the  commissioners  singly  and 
the  board  as  a  whole  are  answerable  to  the  people  for  the  proper 
conduct  of  all  the  city's  affairs.  There  is  no  break  in  the 
chain  of  responsibility.  There  is  enough  power:  it  is  definitely 
located:  it  is  simply  organized:  it  is  linked  with  means  of  en- 
forcing accountability.  A  few  men  are  elected  and  upon  them 
is  the  burden.  The  similarity  to  the  business  corporation  is 
marked.  The  same  chain  of  responsibility  was  there  successfully 
worked  out  long  ago.  American  business  is  contributing  perhaps 
its  best  element, — its  effective  form  of  organization, — its  excellent 
machinery  for  collective  action, — to  city  government.  In  place  of 
careful  attention  to  the  cutting  down  of  operating  expenses  and 
the  increase  of  receipts,  in  order  to  yield  resulting  profits,  there 
is  substituted  a  careful  attention  to  cutting  down  operating  ex- 
penses and  increasing  public  revenues  (aside  from  taxes),  for 
the  general  benefit.  The  same  means  are  used  in  both  instances, 
but  for  different  ends.  Business  methods  are  applied  to  govern- 
ment. In  the  past  it  has  been  assumed  that  because  the  ends 
were  different,  different  methods  must  be  used  in  governmental 
administration,  from  those  of  private  business.  In  some  few 
respects  the  methods  will  be  different;  for  example,  the  govern- 
ment will  probably  never  push  the  rate  of  wages  down  to  the  limit 
sometimes  forced  by  private  business;  but  the  same  care  to  get 


278 


FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 


value  received  may  be  exercised,  similar  economies  and  improved 
methods  of  reducing  running  costs,  and  similar  energy  in  secur- 
ing a  reasonable  return  for  service  rendered,  may  be  sought; 
similar  correct  principles  of  organization  may  be  followed.  The 
commission  form  seems  to  be  the  first  earnest  attempt  to  apply  to 
governmental  conditions  the  successful  experience  of  the  corpora- 
tion, no  less  significant  because  first  inaugurated  to  meet  a  crisis, 
not  necessarily  less  substantial  because  adopted  rapidly.  The 
American  citizen  appears  to  believe  so  thoroughly  in  commission 
government  for  cities,  not  because  the  governing  body  is  called  a 
commission,  nor  because  the  plan  is  new ;  but  because  he  is  thor- 
oughly familiar  with  its  main  principles  as  employed  in  business. 
In  those  cities  where  it  has  been  tried,  its  introduction  has  been 
followed  by  sufficient  financial,  engineering,  moral,  and  general 
civic  improvement  to  convince  him  that  the  application  of  these 
principles  to  the  management  of  municipal  affairs  is  likely  to 
yield  better  results  than  heretofore  secured  under  the  aldermanic 
form. 

LIST  OF  COMMISSION  CITIES.' 


City. 

Popu- 
lation, 
1910. 
36,981 

Date  of  Beginning 
Operation. 

IQOI 

Organized  Under 
General  Law  or 
Special  Charter. 
Charter 

Houston 

Jvf-7'-'" 

78,800 

•  y**  * 
1905 

« 

Dallas 

92,104 

1907 

M 

Ft.  Worth 

73.3" 

" 

M 

Denison 

13,632 

M 

M 

Greenville 

8,850 

" 

" 

Austin 

29,860 

1909 

" 

Waco 

26425 

" 

M 

Palestine 

10,482 

" 

" 

Corpus  Christi 

8,222 

" 

" 

Marshall 
Kennedy 

IMS2 

I9IO 

State  Law 

Aransas  Pass 
I*iarlingen 



u 

M 

Barry 

u 

« 

Lyford 

u 

m 

Port  Lavaca 

If 

u 

Marble  Falls 

„ 

u 

Elkhart 

* 

u 

Terrell 

7.050 

* 

« 

1  A  star  indicates  a  city  not  yet  operating  under  the  commission  plan,  though  hav- 
ing voted  to  do  so.  The  figures  of  population  (U.  S.  Census,  1910)  are  given  for 
those  cities  for  which  population  figures  are  available,  up  to  Jan.  I,  1911.  Census 
Bulletin,  Dec.  15,  1910,  and  later  announcements. 


ERNEST  S.  BRADFORD 


279 


LIST  OF  COMMISSION  CITIES — Continued. 


City. 

Popu-                                           Organized  Under 
lation,        Date  of  Beginning    General  Law  or 
1910.                Operation.          Special  Charter. 
19,363                     1908                     State  Law 
52450                    1909                            " 
10,480                       "                               " 

16,364 
«                               « 

Wichita 
Independence 
Hutchinson 
Anthony 
Caldwell 
Topeka 
Kansas  City 
Coffeyville 
Parsons 
Pittsburg 
Marion 
Cherryvale 
lola 
Wellington 
Emporia 
Abilene 
Newton 
Girard 
Neodesha 

« 

1910 
« 

« 

u 

* 

« 
«( 

« 

(1 
« 
« 

1908 

« 

1910 
1910 

* 
* 
* 

1909 

« 

• 

1910 

* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

« 
« 
« 
« 
« 
« 

M 
>( 
«< 
U 
U 

« 
u 

H 
U 

State  Law 
« 
« 
« 
« 
« 
« 

Home  Rule  Charter 
« 
« 

M 
« 
« 

M 

« 
M 

M 
M 

43,684 
82,331 
12,687 
12,463 
H.755 

9,032 
7,034 
9,058 

7,862 

86,368 
32,811 
14,008 

24,324 
47,828 

*  3,374 
15.543 

Cedar  Rapids 
Keokuk 
Burlington 
Sioux  City 
Marshalltown 
Fort  Dodge 

Enid 
Tnlsa 
MacAlester 
Muskogee 
El  Reno 
Bartlesville 
Sapulpa 
Miami 
Wagoner 
Duncan 

25,278 

*  Not  yet  operating,  though  having  roted. 


280 


FORMS  OF  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 


LIST  OF  COMMISSION  Cmts— Concluded. 


South  Dakota.. 


North  Dakota.., 


City. 

.  Sioux  Falls 

Yankton 

Pierre 

Dell  Rapids 

Huron 

Chamberlain 

Vermillion 
.  Bismark 

Mandan 

Minot 


Popu-  Organized  Under 

lation,     Date  of  Beginning    General  Law  or 
1910.  Operation.  Special  Charter. 


14,094 


5.791 


Minnesota Mankato  

Michigan Port  Huron  18,863 

Wisconsin Eau  Claire  18,310 

Illinois 

Massachusetts. . . .  Haver  hill 

Gloucester 

Lynn 

Idaho Le  wiston  

Colorado   Colorado  Springs    29,078 

Grand  Junction        7,754 
California Berkeley 

San  Diego 

Modesto 

San  Luis  Obispo 

Oakland 
New  Mexico    .... 

W'ashington Tacoma 

Tennessee Memphis 

Mississippi Hattiesburg 

Louisiana Shreveport 

Oregon Baker 

Kentucky Newport 

North  Carolina . . .  High  Point 
South  Carolina.  ..Columbia 
West  Virginia  .  ..Huntingdon 

Blue6eld 


89,336 


40,434 
39,578 

5.'57 


82,972 


28,015 


1909 


1910 
1909 
1909 


1910 


1909 


1907 
1909 
1909 
1909 
1909 


1910 
1910 
1910 


State  Law 


State  Law 


f  Home  Rule  Charter 

I      under  State  Law. 

Home  Rule  Charter 

State  Law 

State  Law 

Charter 


Home  Rule  Charter 


State  Law 

Home  Rule  Charter 

Charter 

State  Law 


Home  Rule  Charter 
State  Law 

Charter 
State  Law 

Charter 


30,309 

1910 

26,319  1910 

31,161  1909 

11,188  1909  " 

Total — 92  cities,  not  including  Buffalo  and  Mt  Vernon  (N.  Y.\  and  three  cities  ia 
Alabama,  all  of  which  have  voted  favorably,  but  are  not  yet  authorized  to  install  the 
plan;  nor  Washington,  D.  C.,  and  Chelsea  (Mass.),  which  have  peculiar  types.  Cities 
appearing  in  some  previously  published  lists,  but  which  upon  further  examination 
are  found  to  have  only  a  partial  form  of  commission  government,  are  Beaumont 
(Texas),  Riverside  (Calif.),  Boise  (Idaho),  St.  Joseph  (Mo.).Taunton  (Mass.),  and 
several  cities  in  Tennessee.  This  list  is  revised  to  Dec.  31,  1910;  but  the  continued 
adoption  of  the  plan  by  new  cities  makes  any  list  soon  incomplete. 


The   Organization   of  Police    Forces. 

By  LEONHARD   FELIX  FULD,  PH.D.,  NEW  YORK. 

Examiner  of  Municipal  Civil  Service  Commission. 

The  police  administration  of  our  American  cities  is  constantly 
being  criticized.  Not  all  of  this  criticism  is  malevolent,  but  much 
of  it  is  engendered  by  motives  other  than  that  of  securing  a 
thoroughly  efficient  administration  of  the  police  department. 
Most  of  the  policemen  and  superior  officers  of  our  police  de- 
partments are  self-respecting,  honest,  industrious  and  efficient 
members  of  the  community;  the  number  of  disreputable  or  dis- 
honest police  officers  is  every  much  smaller  than  the  critics  of 
our  police  departments  would  have  us  believe. 

On  the  other  hand  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  police  admin- 
istration of  nearly  all  American  cities  is  far  from  satisfactory. 
Police  commissioners  are  never  experts;  are  not  always  men  of 
personal  integrity  and  are  seldom  interested  in  giving  to  the 
municipality  an  efficient  administration  of  the  police  department. 
Statutes  are  frequently  enacted  by  the  legislature  of  the  state 
which  conflict  with  the  views  of  the  citizens  of  the  urban  com- 
munities and  ordinances  are  sometimes  passed  by  the  aldermen 
of  the  city  imposing  upon  the  citizens  petty  restrictions  in  the 
conduct  of  their  business  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to  enforce. 
Not  only  do  the  police  have  to  contend  with  inexperienced  com- 
missioners and  impracticable  statutes  but  they  are  also  obliged 
to  cope  with  professional  politicians  who  must  of  necessity  favor 
a  lenient  and  lax  administration  of  the  law  and  who  can  vitally 
affect  the  happiness  and  sometimes  the  official  existence  of  the 
police  officer. 

In  the  present  paper  an  attempt  will  be  made  to  lay  down  a 
few  fundamental  principles,  the  general  adoption  of  which  in 
this  country  would  assist  in  correcting  the  present-day  defects 
of  our  police  departments.  The  reasons  for  each  of  these  prin- 
ciples will  be  briefly  stated  in  order  that  the  principle  itself 

(281) 


282  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

may  be  fully  understood  and  may  be  made  the  subject  of  con- 
structive criticism  by  those  engaged  in  the  field  of  municipal 
administration  and  reform. 

The  head  of  department  should  be  a  single  commissioner  and 
not  a  board  of  police.  The  commissioner  should  have  a  fixed 
term  of  at  least  ten  years.  He  should  be  removable  only  after 
a  trial  on  charges  and  should  have  the  right  to  have  his  removal 
reviewed  by  the  courts  on  a  writ  of  certiorari. 

The  head  of  the  police  department  is  called  upon  to  perform 
duties  which  require  rapidity  of  action,  and  energy,  and  for 
which  it  is  desirable  to  have  a  fixed  and  well-defined  responsi- 
bility. Such  duties  are  best  performed  by  a 

~ea    !  single   officer.     A   board   is   better   adapted   to 

Department  ,.,..,. 

the   performance   of   judicial   duties   or   duties 

which  require  carefulness  of  deliberation,  regard  for  all  sides 
of  the  case  and  an  impartial  decision.  The  fact  that  so  many 
American  cities  still  cling  to  the  board  system  of  police  admin- 
istration is  not  an  indication  of  any  consciousness  of  its  su- 
periority but  is  due  rather  to  the  survival  of  an  historical  accident. 
The  board  system  of  administration  is  the  system  of  municipal 
administration  established  in  English  cities  by  the  Municipal 
Corporations  Act  of  1835.  This  system  of  administration  was 
copied  by  American  cities  and  has  survived  in  many  cities  to  the 
present  day. 

Not  only  is  the  board  system  of  police  administration  bad  in 
principle,  but  the  bi-partisan  board  system  is  also  vicious  in 
practice.  The  prevention  of  blackmail  and  corruption,  the 
repression  of  crime  and  violence,  the  safeguarding  of  life  and 
property,  securing  honest  elections,  and  rewarding  efficient  and 
punishing  inefficient  police  service  are  not  and  cannot  properly 
be  made  questions  of  party  difference.  In  other  words,  the  police 
force  can  be  wisely  and  properly  administered  only  upon  a  non- 
partisan  basis.  Bi-partisan  police  boards  were  introduced  as  a 
party  device  for  securing  a  party  monopoly  of  patronage  and 
spoils  and  for  dividing  them  between  managers  of  the  great 
parties  conspiring  together.  The  question  of  administrative 
efficiency  was  not  even  considered  by  the  legislators  who  intro- 
duced these  bi-partisan  boards.  Bi-partisan  boards  would  seem 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  283 

grotesquely  absurd  to  us  all,  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  they 
are  clothed  with  a  glamour  of  justice  by  party  illusion  and  am- 
bition. They  involve  the  confession  that  partisan  zeal  and 
activity  generally  disqualify  men  for  doing  justice  and  being 
honest  when  party  interests  are  concerned. 

Constant  differences  of  opinion  among  the  members  of  a  bi- 
partisan board  impede  administrative  action.  The  danger  of  a 
deadlock  is  increased  where  there  is  an  even  number  of  members 
in  the  board  and  where  there  are  deadlocks  there  is  always  great 
danger  of  dishonest  compromises  between  the  members  of  the 
board.  Furthermore  the  constitutionality  of  a  bi-partisan  board 
has  been  frequently  questioned.  The  delay  which  results  from 
the  long-continued  deliberation  or  deadlock  of  a  board  of  police 
is  demoralizing  to  the  police  force  in  normal  times  and  extremely 
dangerous  and  disastrous  in  times  of  tumult.  No  civilized  nation 
would  send  an  army  into  a  single  battle  under  the  command  of  a 
board  of  generals  and  yet  in  many  American  cities  the  police 
force  which  is  daily  engaged  in  active  service  is  by  an  historical 
accident  under  the  command  of  a  board  of  commissioners. 

The  police  commissioner  should  have  a  fixed  term  of  at  least 
ten  years.  At  present  the  non-professional  head  of  department 
is  a  mere  bird  of  passage  usually  flying  so  fast  that  the  mem- 
bers of  the  uniformed  force  are  scarcely  able  to  determine  his 
species.  Many  policemen  are  unable  to  learn  and  comprehend 
the  administrative  policy  of  the  head  of  department  before  he  is 
displaced  by  another  man;  other  policemen  do  not  care  to  en- 
force the  policy  of  the  head  of  department  because  they  fear  that 
any  such  enforcement  may  cause  them  to  incur  the  disfavor  of 
the  next  head  of  department.  The  result  is  that  many  police- 
men fall  into  the  habit  of  shirking  their  official  duties  because 
they  believe  that  this  is  the  safest  course  for  them  to  pursue. 

They   perform   only   such   duties   as   must  be   performed   by 

them,  to  protect  themselves  from  charges  of  neglect  of  duty  but 

carefully  refrain  from  performing  their  duties 

A    T^OTI    ir  ao  v*o' 

so  conscientiously  toward  their  present  head  of 
Term  of  Omce 

department  as  to  be  likely  to  incur  the  enmity  of 

any  succeeding  commissioner.  In  concrete  words  the  attitude  of 
the  typical  American  policeman  is  exemplified  by  the  policeman 


284  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

who  when  he  sees  a  street  brawl  crosses  over  to  the  other  sid« 
of  the  street  or  goes  around  the  corner,  so  that  he  need  not  inter- 
fere. It  should  be  borne  in  mind  however  that  this  attitude  is 
not  due  to  physical  cowardice.  The  policeman  is  not  afraid  of 
the  physical  consequences  of  interfering;  he  merely  does  not  wish 
to  take  any  action  which  may  cause  him  to  fall  into  disfavor  with 
his  present  or  any  future  superior  officer. 

If  the  police  commissioner  had  a  fixed  term  of  ten  years,  the 
members  of  the  uniformed  force  could  all  thoroughly  understand 
his  administrative  policies  and  it  would  be  to  their  own  interests 
to  carry  them  out  faithfully.  The  commissioner  with  a  term  of 
ten  years  would  be  able  to  reward  adequately  those  who  are 
efficient  and  loyal  to  him  and  he  would  be  able  to  ferret  out  those 
who  habitually  shirk  their  duties.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there 
are  any  other  factors  which  would  so  largely  raise  the  general 
morale  of  our  American  police  forces  as  the  extension  of  the 
police  commissioner's  term  to  ten  years. 

Furthermore,  if  we  are  to  continue  our  system  of  non-pro- 
fessional police  control  in  this  country  it  will  be  almost  essential 
to  increase  the  term  of  the  non-professional  head  of  department. 
In  a  small  city  in  the  last  century  the  head  of  the  police  depart- 
ment needed  little  expert  or  professional  knowledge  or  experi- 
ence. The  chief  of  police  or  other  professional  officer  could  at- 
tend to  all  matters  requiring  expert  knowledge  and  the  com- 
missioner could  confine  himself  almost  exclusively  to  the  direc- 
tion of  the  administrative  policy  of  the  department.  In  the 
larger  cities  however  under  the  complex  conditions  of  modern 
days  it  is  essential  that  the  man  who  directs  the  administrative 
policy  of  the  department  have  some  expert  knowledge  and  the 
more  expert  knowledge  he  possesses  the  better  he  will  be  able 
to  perform  the  duties  of  his  position. 

It  is  the  theory  of  our  municipal  government  that  the  non- 
professional  head  of  department  is  a  man  who  possesses  such  a 
good  general  education  that  he  can  secure  the  necessary  profes- 
sional knowledge  of  his  position  very  quickly.  This  was  true 
when  the  science  of  police  administration  was  not  well  developed; 
under  modern  conditions  it  is  so  complicated  that  it  takes  a  long 
time  to  gain  even  a  general  acquaintance  with  its  principles.  To 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  285 

become  an  expert,  as  the  head  of  the  police  department  ought  to 
be,  takes  many  years.  It  is  frequently  the  case  under  modern 
conditions  that  it  takes  a  police  commissioner  almost  his  entire 
term  of  office  to  learn  the  details  of  his  business  and  then  he  is 
turned  out  of  office.  The  economic  waste  of  such  a  system  of 
municipal  government  is  enormous,  and  of  course  admin- 
istrative efficiency  is  entirely  impossible  of  attainment  under 
these  conditions. 

In  order  that  the  police  commissioner  may  have  a  fixed  term 
of  ten  years  it  will  be  necessary  to  provide  that  he  be  removable 
only  after  a  trial  on  charges  and  that  his  removal  be  subject  to 
review  by  the  courts  on  a  writ  of  certiorari.  It  is  generally  not 
desirable  to  grant  to  a  public  officer  the  right  to  a  formal  trial 
on  charges  before  removal  and  the  further  right  of  the  review  of 
the  removal  proceedings  on  a  writ  of  certiorari.  The  existence 
of  these  rights  impedes  administrative  disciplinary  action  and 
frequently  leads  to  the  retention  in  office  of  an  inefficient  or  cor- 
rupt public  official.  It  is  believed  however  that  the  police  com- 
missionership  of  our  cities  may  properly  be  excepted  from  this 
general  principle,  since  the  danger  of  removal  for  political 
reasons  or  because  of  administrative  efficiency  is  so  great  in  this 
case  under  modern  American  urban  conditions. 

Every  police  department  should  have  an  efficient  inspection 
service,  a  proper  system  of  efficiency  records  and  a  promotion 
machinery  which  will  insure  the  advancement  of  the  most  effi- 
cient policemen  from  the  ranks  to  the  superior  positions  in  the 
department. 

The  function  of  the  inspector  is  of  prime  importance  in  every 
large  administrative  system.  Upon  the  honesty  and  efficiency  of 
this  officer  depends  to  a  larger  extent  than  upon  any  other  single 
factor  the  general  efficiency  of  the  whole  organization.  In  Eng- 
land the  inspectors  of  the  Home  Office,  a  bureau  of  the  central 
government,  who  regularly  inspect  the  municipal  police  forces 
of  the  country  are  a  most  potent  factor  in  the 
maintenance  of  the  efficiency  of  these  municipal 


,.,  T  »    *     «       «  *          •/•  /v 

police  forces.     If  the  local  force  is  found  suffi- 

cient in  numbers,  well  organized  and  disciplined  and  in  all  other 
respects  up  to  the  standard  set  by  the  central  authorities,  the 


286  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

general  -government  will  pay  half  the  cost  of  maintaining  the 
force.  This  system  of  granting  aid  after  inspection  is  an  ex- 
cellent inspection  system  from  without,  but  in  addition  to  such  a 
system  of  inspection  there  is  also  required  an  internal  inspection 
system,  if  the  efficiency  of  the  administrative  organization  is  to 
be  properly  maintained. 

The  London  police  force  has  an  excellent  system  of  internal 
inspection.  There  are  patrol  inspectors  to  look  after  the  police 
officers  of  the  rank  of  constable  and  sergeant  on  the  street ;  there 
are  divisional  inspectors  to  look  after  the  police  officers  of  the 
entire  division  and  chief  inspectors  who  when  not  acting  as 
superintendents  during  the  temporary  absence  of  those  officers 
must  also  go  out  on  the  street  and  perform  inspection  duty.  The 
general  efficiency  of  the  London  police  is  undoubtedly  due  to  a 
large  extent  to  this  excellent  inspection  system.  Every  officer 
and  every  constable  is  kept  from  shirking  his  duty  and  remains 
constantly  active  and  alert  because  of  the  knowledge  that  he 
will  be  visited  at  irregular  but  frequent  intervals  by  an  in- 
spector and  similarly  every  inspector  performs  his  duties  con- 
scientiously because  he  must  at  all  times  be  in  a  position  to  give 
a  satisfactory  account  of  his  own  performance  of  duty  when- 
ever called  upon  by  a  superior  inspector. 

The  true  inspector  is  more  than  a  spy  whose  duty  it  is  to 
ferret  out  and  report  cases  of  individual  delinquency  on  the 
part  of  subordinates,  although  it  is  true  that  this  is  one  of  his 
important  functions.  The  efficiency  of  an  organization  is  bet- 
tered only  negatively  by  criticism  and  the  report  of  delinquencies. 
The  inspection  work  which  is  of  greatest  value  consists  of  affir- 
mative betterment  by  means  of  criticisms  of  methods  and  not  of 
men  and  by  means  of  general  suggestions  for  improvements. 
This  is  the  principal  function  of  the  true  inspector,  although 
he  should  also  report  cases  of  serious  delinquency  which  come 
to  his  notice.  An  inspector  who  looks  only  for  cases  of  de- 
linquency is  a  spy  and  is  hated  by  the  subordinates  as  a  spy 
deserves  to  be  hated;  the  true  inspector  is  regarded  by  the  sub- 
ordinates as  a  friend  who  wishes  to  assist  them  in  their  work 
and  the  relations  between  the  inspector  and  the  person  inspected 
are  most  cordial.  Furthermore,  the  American  people  will  not 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  287 

tolerate  the  employment  of  spies  in  the  police  department  or  in 
any  other  departmenet  of  our  municipal  government. 

In  the  American  police  systems  the  function  of  the  inspector 
has  never  been  clearly  differentiated.  Some  cities  have  no 
inspectors  of  police  and  in  other  cities  the  inspector  is  merely  a 
district  commander  in  charge  of  a  district  composed  of  several 
precincts.  Where  there  are  inspectors  their  duties  are  confined 
principally  to  an  inspection  of  the  station  houses,  the  uniforms 
and  equipment  of  the  members  of  the  force  and  the  record  books 
required  to  be  kept  at  the  station  houses.  In  other  words  they 
are  not  true  inspectors  but  merely  supervising  officers.  This 
want  of  inspectors  possessing  the  education,  experience,  and 
intelligence  requisite  for  a  careful  study  of  the  problems  of  police 
administration  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the 
inefficiency  of  some  of  our  American  police  departments.  It  is 
true  that  sometimes  an  energetic  non-professional  head  of  de- 
partment performs  very  valuable  inspection  service,  but  such 
instances  are  extremely  rare. 

Every  police  force  in  the  United  States  ought  to  have  one 
or  more  inspectors.  These  men  should  be  selected  by  means  of 
a  competitive  examination  open  to  members  of  the  police  force 
of  all  ranks  and  to  men  not  connected  with  the  police  force  as 
well.  If  proper  questions  are  propounded  to  the  candidates  in 
such  a  written  competitive  examination  it  is 
likely  that  in  most  cases  members  of  the  police 
force  will  succeed  in  obtaining  the  highest  ratings  but  it  is  also 
likely  that  at  least  some  new  blood  will  be  introduced  into  the 
department  by  the  plan  suggested.  These  inspectors  should  re- 
ceive a  large  salary, — a  salary  larger  than  that  which  is  given  to 
precinct  commanders.  If  during  their  period  of  probation  it  is 
found  that  they  lack  disciplinary  ability  or  the  faculty  for  getting 
along  well  with  the  members  of  the  uniformed  force,  they 
should  be  dropped.  They  must  also  possess  the  ability  to  study 
police  conditions  and  to  recommend  improvements  in  methods. 
If  the  spy  is  called  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  head  of  department 
these  inspectors  should  be  not  only  the  eyes  and  ears  but  also 
the  brain  of  the  head  of  department. 

In  addition  to  an  efficient  inspection  service  every  large  admin- 


288 

istrative  organization  requires  a  proper  system  of  efficiency 
records.  Whenever  the  organization  is  so  large  that  the  head 
of  the  organization  cannot  be  personally  acquainted  with  all  his 
subordinates  efficiency  records  which  are  carefully  devised  and 
faithfully  kept  are  necessary  as  guides  to  the  head  of  the  organi- 
zation in  making  promotions.  In  private  organizations  the  pro- 
moting officer  can  usually  accept  the  recommendations  of  the 
subordinates'  immediate  administrative  superior,  because  he  can 
reduce  to  the  ranks  any  one  who  demonstrates  that  he  is  unable 
to  shoulder  the  higher  responsibility.  In  the  police  department 
this  system  is  impracticable  both  because  men  who  have  been 
promoted  can  in  most  cases  not  be  reduced  to  the  ranks  and  also 
because  the  man's  immediate  administrative  superior  may  permit 
considerations  of  private  rather  than  public  service  to  affect  his 
estimate  of  the  man's  fitness  for  promotion. 

In  most  of  the  cities  of  the  United  States  in  which  efficiency 
records  of  the  policemen  are  kept  they  are  only  records  of  ex- 
traordinary rewards  and  penalties.  These  so-called  efficiency 
records  are  not  efficiency  records  at  all.  They  chronicle  only 
the  fines  and  other  penalties  which  have  been  imposed  upon  the 
officer  for  infractions  of  the  rules  and  regulations  of  the  depart- 
ment and  the  rewards  which  have  been  bestowed  upon  him  in 
the  form  of  honorable  mentions  and  police  medals  for  extraor- 
dinary services  rendered  by  him  at  the  risk  of  his  life.  Such 
records  are  practically  wortless  when  used  for  the  purpose  of 
determining  the  worth  of  a  man  as  a  police  officer.  The  ener- 
getic police  officer  who  does  the  most  efficient  work  is  more 
likely  to  have  complaints  made  against  him  than 

and  C    d^t  *s  ^e  man  w^°  constant^y  shirks  his  work  and 

shifts  every  responsibility  upon  another  officer. 
It  is  possible  for  an  easy-going  policeman  who  by  reason  of  his 
indolence  is  not  only  inefficient  but  practically  worthless  as  a 
member  of  the  uniformed  force  to  go  through  his  official  career 
with  a  clean  record  at  headquarters.  In  other  words  a  man  who 
does  not  do  anything  wrong  may  also  be  and  not  infrequently 
is  a  man  who  does  not  do  anything  at  all.  The  fact  that  a 
policeman  has  a  clean  record  does  not  show  that  he  is  an  effi- 
cient officer;  and  this  record  ought  not  to  be  the  sole  record  of 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  289 

efficiency  used   in   determining  the  percentage  in   a  promotion 
examination. 

Nor  is  it  entirely  proper  to  make  deductions  for  each  day's 
fine  which  the  policeman  has  forfeited  as  a  penalty  for  an  official 
delinquency.  There  are  two  objections  to  such  deductions.  In 
the  first  place  the  most  efficient  police  officers  may  be  guilty  of 
delinquencies  and  as  we  have  already  explained  the  men  who 
are  guilty  of  the  fewest  delinquencies  are  frequently  the  least 
efficient  members  of  the  force.  Furthermore  when  a  man  for- 
feits one  or  more  day's  pay  for  an  official  misconduct  the  for- 
feiture of  pay  is  a  sufficient  punishment  and  it  does  not  seem 
just  to  punish  him  again  for  the  same  offense,  when  he  comes 
up  for  promotion.  In  the  second  place  this  system  of  making 
deductions  for  penalties  which  have  been  imposed  by  way  of 
administrative  discipline  has  the  effect  of  discouraging  those 
policemen  who  most  need  an  incentive  to  make  them  perform 
their  duties  efficiently.  The  man  in  the  police  department  who 
has  made  mistakes  or  who  has  committed  official  misdeeds 
should  either  be  discharged  from  the  service  or  he  should  be 
punished  and  encouraged  to  do  better  work  in  the  future.  If 
instead  of  encouraging  him  to  do  better  work  you  take  away  or 
hinder  his  chance  of  promotion  which  is  the  greatest  incentive 
possessed  by  these  men,  there  is  created  in  the  department  a 
body  of  inefficient  men  who  have  no  ambition  to  rise  and  who  are 
popularly  called  the  deadwood  of  the  department.  The  citizen 
who  sees  an  old  man  of  fifty  years  or  more  with  a  dull,  listless, 
pitiful  expression  on  his  face  patrol  the  street  on  a  cold  winter 
night  fully  appreciates  what  injury  this  deadwood  does  to  the 
police  department.  The  department  needs  active,  energetic, 
ambitious  men  in  every  grade  of  the  service  and  every  man  who 
has  been  deprived  of  his  ambition  by  seeing  his  chances  of  pro- 
motion slipping  through  his  fingers  because  of  official  delin- 
quencies for  which  he  has  already  been  punished  by  the  forfeiture 
of  his  pay  becomes  a  serious  handicap  to  the  efficiency  of  the 
department. 

The  system  of  granting  additional  credit  in  the  promotion 
examination  for  rewards  which  the  policeman  has  received  on 
account  of  official  action  taken  by  him  at  the  risk  of  his  own 


290  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

life  is  also  open  to  criticism  in  two  respects.  In  the  first  place, 
when  a  policeman  saves  a  life  at  a  burning  building  or  stops  a 
runaway  horse  he  is  merely  performing  routine  police  duty  for 
which  he  is  paid.  If  a  policeman  refuses  to  rescue  a  person 
in  a  burning  building  or  refuses  to  attempt  to  stop  a  runaway 
horse  he  becomes  subject  to  charges  for  neglect  of  official  duty. 
It  may  be  considered  good  policy  to  reward  such  routine  official 
acts  when  accompanied  by  great  personal  danger  with  honorable 
mention  or  with  a  medal.  Such  rewards  may  stimulate  the 
members  of  the  force  to  lofty  ideals  although  serious  doubt 
exists  as  to  whether  they  have  any  such  influence.  However  that 
may  be,  there  is  nobody  who  begrudges  the  policeman  who  has 
saved  a  life  in  this  way  the  honorable  mention  or  the  medal  which 
he  receives. 

Having  been  rewarded  by  the  granting  of  such  special  recog- 
nition, however,  there  seems  to  be  no  good  reason  why  he 
should  be  again  rewarded  for  the  same  act  when  he  comes  up  for 
promotion.  There  is  no  one  who  will  seriously  maintain  that  a 
policeman  who  recklessly  risks  his  life  to  save  the  life  of  a 
citizen  proves  by  such  an  act  that  he  is  especially  competent  to 
discharge  the  duties  of  a  superior  police  officer.  Experience  has 
shown  that  the  policemen  who  are  most  ready  to  risk  their  lives 
in  times  of  emergency  are  often  the  policemen  who  are  most 
inefficient  in  the  discharge  of  purely  routine  duties  from  day  to 
day.  Furthermore  the  granting  of  a  preference  in  promotion 
examination  to  those  policemen  who  have  received  official  re- 
wards does  an  injustice  to  police  officers  who  are  not  only  just 
as  competent  but  who  are  in  addition  just  as  willing  to  risk 
their  lives  for  the  sake  of  their  fellow  citizens  but  who  have 
never  had  an  opportunity  to  do  so.  Police  officers  cannot  do 
anything  to  increase  their  chances  of  obtaining  these  rewards. 
It  seems  unjust  to  punish  a  policeman  for  his  lack  of  opportunity 
and  it  should  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  when  the  stopping  of 
runaway  horses  at  personal  risk  increases  a  policeman's  chances 
of  promotion  unscrupulous  policemen  will  not  hesitate  to  have 
friends  start  runaway  horses  so  that  they  may  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  stopping  them. 

A  system  of  efficiency  records  to  be  satisfactory  must  record 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  291 

accurately  the  worth  of  the  individual  policeman  as  a  performer 
of  routine  police  duties.  He  should  be  given 
credit  on  his  efficiency  record  for  the  number 
of  arrests  made  by  him  and  the  number  of 
convictions  secured  by  him.  The  points  which  he  receives  for 
each  arrest  may  be  marked  in  accordance  with  a  scale  graduated 
according  to  the  importance  of  the  criminal  arrested.  For  ex- 
ample, one  point  may  be  given  for  the  arrest  of  a  drunkard, 
vagrant  or  misdemeanant  and  three  points  for  the  arrest  of  a 
pickpocket  or  other  person  with  a  criminal  record.  Or  it  may 
be  considered  preferable  to  give  credit  only  for  the  arrest  of 
felons  so  that  arrests  by  the  police  for  trivial  misdemeanors 
may  not  be  unduly  encouraged.  In  any  case  policemen  making 
unjustifiable  arrests  should  be  severely  disciplined.  Similarly 
full  credit  should  be  given  the  policeman  on  his  efficiency  record 
for  working  up  the  case  against  a  criminal  and  securing  a  con- 
viction. Here  again  a  scale  may  be  employed  so  that  the  im- 
portance of  the  conviction  may  bear  some  relation  to  the  amount 
of  credit  received  by  the  police  officer.  Two  points  may  be 
given  when  a  prisoner  is  fined,  five  points  when  he  is  held  for 
the  grand  jury,  five  points  when  he  is  sent  to  the  workhouse,  and 
ten  points  when  he  is  sent  to  the  reformatory  or  state  prison. 

Other  elements  which  may  be  considered  in  making  up  a 
policeman's  efficiency  record  are  his  physical  condition  as  indi- 
cated by  the  number  of  days  on  which  he  was  absent  because 
of  personal  illness,  the  condition  of  his  post  and  the  improve- 
ment which  he  has  been  able  to  accomplish  on  his  post,  com- 
mendation which  has  been  conferred  upon  him  by  his  precinct 
commander  or  other  immediate  superior  officer  when  properly 
supported  by  facts,  his  faithful  attention  to  duty  as  indicated 
by  the  small  number  of  sustained  complaints  made  against  him 
by  his  superior  officers  in  the  department,  etc.  The  complete 
record  may  be  submitted  to  a  rating  board  at  police  headquarters 
consisting  of  superior  members  of  the  uniformed  force,  who  may 
grade  the  men  in  accordance  with  a  clearly  defined  and  well 
understood  rating  scheme;  or  the  rating  may  be  done  by  the  civil- 
service  examiners  in  accordance  with  a  definite  and  well-defined 
rating  scheme.  If  the  rating  is  to  be  done  by  the  civil-service 


292  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

authorities  the  records  should  be  revised  and  edited  by  the  cen- 
tral rating  board  at  police  headquarters  before  they  are  sent  to 
the  civil-service  commission,  in  order  that  only  bona-fide  correct 
records  of  value  from  a  police  point  of  view  may  be  transmitted 
for  rating  to  the  civil-service  examiners.  It  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  add  that  the  record  should  only  constitute  a  portion  of  the 
promotion  examination;  the  candidates  should  also  be  given  a 
careful  written  examination  to  test  their  knowledge  of  the  rules 
and  regulations  of  the  department,  the  laws  and  the  ordinances 
and  the  practical  administration  of  the  police  department. 

Applicants  for  appointment  on  the  police  force  should  be 
subjected  to  a  thorough  examination  of  their  physical,  mental 
and  moral  condition.  Every  man  who  is  certified  by  the  civil 

service  commission  should  be  appointed  in  the 
Selection  of  ,  •  v-  ,  ,  •  .,  ,•  -,i 

p  ,.  order  in  which  his  name  appears  on  the  eligible 

list.  The  recruits  should  be  carefully  drilled 
in  infantry  tactics  and  revolver  practice  and  instructed  by  com- 
petent teachers  in  the  duties  of  a  police  officer  and  the  laws 
which  they  will  be  called  upon  to  enforce. 

Applicants  for  appointment  on  American  police  forces  are 
quite  generally  subjected  to  a  physical  and  medical  examination 
which  is  sufficiently  thorough  for  the  purpose.  A  careful  in- 
quiry is  made  into  the  family  and  personal  history  of  each  ap- 
plicant from  the  point  of  view  of  the  medical  examiner.  The 
most  important  anthropometrical  measurements  of  each  candidate 
are  taken, — usually  the  weight,  the  height,  and  the  girth  of  chest, 
contracted  and  expanded, — he  is  subjected  to  carefully  devised 
tests  of  the  physical  strength  of  his  back,  legs,  upper  arms, 
forearms,  and  abdominal  muscles  and  he  is  given  the  benefit  of 
a  medical  examination  of  his  circulatory  function,  his  respiratory 
function,  and  his  digestive  function,  his  sight  and  his  hearing. 

In  many  cities  the  applicant  is  also  required  to  undergo  a 
written  examination  of  his  mental  qualifications  for  the  position. 
The  general  adoption  of  this  written  test  for  police  candidates 
is  strongly  to  be  recommended.  Quite  apart  from  the  fact  that 
such  an  impersonal  written  test  in  which  the  identity  of  the 
candidate  is  concealed  is  the  fairest  method  of  selection,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  the  policeman  should  be  possessed  of  at 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  293 

least  average  intelligence  and  that  his  efficiency  is  generally  in- 
creased in  direct  proportion  to  his  intelligence.  Whatever  may 
be  said  in  favor  of  the  principle  that  intellectual  men  do  not 
make  good  firemen, — a  principle  which  has  by  no  means  been 
proven  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  ablest  men  in  this  country, — 
this  principle  has  absolutely  no  application  to  the  police  forces 
of  this  country.  Applicants  for  the  police  forces  and  the  fire- 
fighting  forces  of  this  country  should  be  men  who  are  decidedly 
above  the  average  in  physical  development.  But  this  is  all  that 
these  two  bodies  of  municipal  servants  have  in  common  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  selecting  civil-service  commission.  Fire- 
men work  constantly  in  the  presence  of  their  superior  officers, 
who  can  direct  their  work  and  it  may  be  that  men  of  unusual 
physical  endurance  and  development  can  be  good  firemen  even 
though  they  are  possessed  of  less  than  average  intelligence. 
Policemen  on  the  other  hand  do  not  normally  work  in  the  pres- 
ence of  their  superior  officers.  They  are  alone  on  the  street 
and  must  depend  upon  their  own  intelligence  to  solve  problems 
which  are  difficult  and  which  they  are  generally  called  upon  to 
solve  between  the  bitter  antagonism  of  two  contesting  parties. 
No  one  who  has  had  any  experience  in  police  work  will  main- 
tain for  a  single  moment  that  under  American  conditions  police- 
men require  more  brawn  than  brain. 

The  tests  usually  given  to  police  candidates  are  a  memory  test, 
a  test  in  arithmetic,  elementary  questions  on  city  government, 
and  questions  on  the  localities  of  the  city.  The  memory  test 
when  properly  given  so  that  the  candidates  have  a  reasonable 
opportunity  of  understanding  it  is  an  excellent  test.  It  consists 
of  the  reading  of  a  brief  police  order  to  the  men  and  requiring 
them  to  reproduce  the  substance  of  it  in  writing.  The  arithmetic 
test  is  extremely  elementary,  consisting  generally  only  of  ques- 
tions in  addition,  subtraction,  multiplication  and  division.  The 
questions  on  city  government  are  such  as  a  police  officer  is 
called  upon  to  answer  daily  on  the  street  in  the  discharge  of  his 
duties  and  every  policeman  should  be  able  to  answer  the  localities 
questions,  since  he  ought  to  be  able  to  direct  strangers  who  may 
ask  him  to  direct  them  to  different  parts  of  his  own  city.  An- 
other test  which  is  frequently  given  to  police  candidates  and 


294 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 


which  is  of  more  doubtful  value  is  the  paper  of  questions  on 
the  rules  and  regulations  of  the  police  department.  The  candi- 
date generally  memorizes  the  rules  hastily  before  the  examina- 
tion and  forgets  them  soon  after.  As  a  means  of  insuring  that 
the  candidate  will  at  least  gain  a  superficial  knowledge  of  the 
rules  by  which  he  will  be  governed  after  his  appointment  it 
may  have  some  slight  value  but  superficial  knowledge  is  never 
of  any  great  value. 

The  examination  into  the  moral  qualifications  of  candidates 
for  appointment  on  the  police  force  is  in  many  cities  neglected. 
A  complete  account  of  the  personal  history  of  each  applicant 
from  the  date  of  his  birth  should  be  complied  by  the  police  de- 
partment or  the  civil  service  commission  by  means  of  trained 
investigators  and  no  name  should  be  certified  for  appointment 
unless  the  personal  history  of  the  applicant  is 
Qualifications  satisfactory.  Large  responsibility  and  even 
larger  temptations  are  offered  to  policemen  in 
American  cities  and  it  is  wrong  to  clothe  with  the  powers  of  a 
police  officer  any  man  whose  personal  history  shows  him  to  be 
of  weak  character.  At  present  few  American  cities  investigate 
thoroughly  the  personal  history  of  police  applicants.  Sometimes 
a  list  of  the  names,  addresses  and  occupations  of  the  candidates 
is  printed  in  the  newspapers  so  that  anyone  having  knowledge 
of  the  unsatisfactory  moral  character  of  any  applicant  may 
communicate  that  fact  to  the  proper  authorities.  In  other  cities 
the  captain  of  the  police  precinct  in  which  the  applicant  resides 
is  instructed  to  inquire  into  his  character.  In  still  other  cities 
the  applicant  is  asked  on  his  official  application  blank  to  give 
under  oath  his  occupation  during  the  last  five  years  and  to 
indicate  whether  he  has  ever  been  arrested  or  convicted.  All 
of  these  methods  are  useful  but  they  give  neither  to  the  civil 
service  commission  nor  to  the  appointing  officer  that  complete 
and  thorough  knowledge  of  the  applicant's  personal  history  which 
is  so  much  to  be  desired. 

In  the  cities  in  which  the  policemen  are  selected  by  means  of 
a  civil  service  examination, — and  no  other  method  of  selection 
can  be  considered  at  all  satisfactory, — the  head  of  the  police  de- 
partment cannot  appoint  any  man  as  a  policeman  unless  his 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  295 

name  is  certified  to  him  by  the  civil  service  commission.  But  it 
is  a  fundamental  principle  of  our  public  law  under  prevailing 
constitutional  provisions  that  the  power  of  appointment  is  a 
function  involving  the  exercise  of  discretion  and  that  this  dis- 
cretion may  not  be  taken  away  from  an  appointing  officer  by 
civil  service  legislation.  Accordingly,  the  head  of  the  police  de- 
partment has  the  power  in  the  exercise  of  his  discretion  to  pass 
over  any  two  of  the  three  names  certified  to  him  for  each  exist- 
ing vacancy  and  if  a  man  has  been  certified  for  appointment  three 
times  and  has  failed  of  appointment  each  time,  his  name  is  not 
again  certified  until  the  appointing  officer  makes  a  special  request 
therefor.  Thus,  by  omitting  three  times  to  appoint  a  man  who 
has  successfully  met  all  the  requirements  for  appointment  as 
patrolman,  the  head  of  the  police  department  can  practically 
defeat  his  chances  of  appointment.  Under  such  a  system  of  ap- 
pointment each  man  on  the  eligible  list  bends  every  energy  to  se- 
cure such  influence  as  will  insure  his  early  appointment. 

It  was  true  at  one  time  in  the  history  of  civil  service  adminis- 
tration that  the  civil  service  examinations  were  tests  of  scholastic 
ability  and  not  tests  of  the  candidate's  fitness  for  the  position 
which  he  sought.  This  defect  in  the  system  of  civil  service 
examinations  has  been  largely  remedied  at  the  present  day. 
Policemen  are  officers  who  are  selected  after  a  most  careful  civil 
service  examination  which  examines  them  not  only  mentally 
mnd  physically  but  also  morally.  It  ought  not  to  make  the 
slightest  difference  to  the  police  commissioner  who  the  applicant 
for  appointment  as  policeman  may  be,  provided  that  he  can  be 
assured  that  he  is  mentally,  physically  and  morally  fit  for  the 
position.  The  certification  of  an  eligible  by  the  civil  service  com- 
mission ought  to  be  such  a  guarantee  of  the  mental,  physical 
and  moral  fitness  of  the  applicant  that  the  police  commissioner 
could  take  such  a  certification  and  base  his  appointment 
thereon  in  every  case.  If  the  civil  service  commission  habitually 
or  even  frequently  certifies  for  appointment  men  who  are  unfit 
for  appointment  because  of  mental  deficiency,  physical  defects 
or  moral  delinquency  it  is  an  indication  that  the  examining 
machinery  of  the  civil  service  commission  is  inefficient  and 
such  inefficiency  can  be  easily  corrected.  To  allow  the  head  of 


296  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

the  police  department  to  reject  two  out  of  every  three  eligibles 
certified  to  him  for  appointment  by  the  civil  service  commission 
would  be  an  insult  to  the  civil  service  commission,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  fact  that  it  is  probably  due  to  a  firmly  established 
principle  of  our  law.  This  principle  which  is  the  principle  of 
the  discretion  of  the  appointing  officer  ought  to  be  modified  by 
legislation  if  possible  and  by  constitutional  amendment  if 
necessary.  In  actual  practice  this  discretion  is  frequently  abused. 

After  he  has  been  appointed  the  young  recruit  should  be 
carefully  instructed  in  the  duties  of  his  position.  He  should  be 
taught  first  aid  to  the  injured,  the  policeman's  knowledge  of 
which  has  saved  so  many  lives  on  the  streets  of  our  busy  cities 
in  the  interval  of  time  which  must  necessarily  elapse  before 
medical  assistance  can  be  summoned.  He  should  also  be  drilled 
in  the  use  of  his  revolver  since  not  only  the  security  of  the 
community  but  also  the  safety  of  the  policemen  themselves  so 
frequently  depends  upon  their  ability  to  use  their  revolver.  He 
should  be  taught  how  properly  to  use  his  revolver  not  so  much 
because  it  is  important  that  he  hit  the  mark  as  that  it  is  ex- 
ceedingly important  that  innocent  bystanders 
Instruction  of  ,  i  •  •  •,  ,  i  •  r- 

_,        .,  may  not  be  injured  by  him.     Gymnastic  exer- 

cises which  tend  to  increase  the  strength,  agility 
and  muscular  development  of  the  policemen  are  frequently 
omitted  because  there  are  no  suitable  gymnasium  facilities.  Al- 
though it  is  true  that  the  young  policemen  must  be  almost  physi- 
cally perfect  in  order  to  pass  the  physical  examination  which  is 
one  of  the  conditions  precedent  to  appointment,  yet  physical 
training  in  the  school  of  instruction  would  be  invaluable  not 
only  to  make  certain  that  they  continue  in  good  physical  condi- 
tion but  also  to  train  them  physically  for  the  duties  of  their 
profession.  Furthermore  policemen  ought  to  be  given  the  bene- 
fit of  suitable  gymnastic  training  as  long  as  they  are  members 
of  the  police  force  so  as  to  insure  that  they  remain  at  all  times 
in  good  physical  condition.  A  policeman  in  poor  physical  con- 
dition is  a  poor  policeman  and  a  policeman  who  is  burdened  with 
large  deposits  of  adipose  tissue  is  almost  useless  as  a  performer 
of  routine  police  duty. 

Just  as  at  the  present  day  the  physical  education  of  the  police 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  297 

recruit  is  in  many  cities  neglected,  his  intellectual  education  is 
improperly  given  to  him.  The  young  men  are  ordered  to  com- 
mit to  memory  questions  and  answers  relating  to  the  primary 
rights  and  duties  of  the  police  officer.  In  almost  every  city 
of  the  United  States  in  which  the  young  policeman  receives  any 
theoretical  intellectual  training  it  is  imparted  by  this  method  of 
question  and  answer.  As  a  method  of  instruction  the  catecheti- 
cal method  is  open  to  severe  criticism.  It  is  a  historical  survival 
of  any  early  system  of  education,  unsatisfactory  from  a  pedagogi- 
cal point  of  view  in  the  case  of  children  and  much  more  ob- 
jectionable in  instructing  adults.  That  a  person  will  permanently 
retain  much  information  gained  by  the  memorizing  of  questions 
and  their  answers  is  not  seriously  maintained  by  any  educational 
specialist  while  the  intellectual  training  and  discipline  received 
by  this  method  of  instruction  is  so  slight  as  to  be  negligible. 
When  we  consider  that  it  is  a  characteristic  tendency  of  modern 
educational  theory  to  permit  not  even  the  mature  university 
student  to  accept  the  carefully  prepared  treatises  of  experts  but 
to  require  him  to  gain  his  knowledge  in  so  far  as  may  be  prac- 
ticable by  manual  exercise  in  the  laboratory  and  by  the  intellec- 
tual exercise  which  is  obtained  by  the  free  discussion  of  teacher 
and  student  in  the  lecture  room  and  the  recitation  room,  it  seems 
indeed  strange  that  the  medieval  catechetical  method  should  sur- 
vive so  generally  in  the  professional  education  of  policemen. 

The  excuse  which  is  generally  offered, — that  policemen  are 
not  sufficiently  intelligent  to  permit  of  being  instructed  by  any 
other  method, — is  only  partly  true.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  their 
general  education  is  insufficient  to  form  the  requisite  foundation 
for  a  systematic  training  in  criminal  jurisprudence  but  a  com- 
plete knowledge  of  criminal  law  is  not  one  of  the  essential  quali- 
fications demanded  of  the  young  policemen.  The  principles  of 
the  criminal  law  are  exceedingly  technical  and  it  is  unnecessary 
to  burden  the  police  recruit  with  such  intellectual  puzzles.  He 
requires  instruction  merely  in  his  own  rights  and  duties  and  in 
the  definition  of  the  principal  felonies  and  misdemeanors.  There 
is  little  doubt  that  this  instruction  can  be  better  imparted  by 
the  free  discussion  of  hypothetical  cases  than  by  the  catechetical 
method  at  present  so  generally  in  use.  The  obstacle  to  the 


298  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

introduction  of  such  a  system  is  not  the  deficient  general  edu- 
cation of  the  policemen  but  rather  the  want  of  good  teachers. 
In  addition  to  his  instruction  in  the  school  of  instruction  the 
police  recruit  should  of  course  continue  to  receive  the  practical 
training  which  he  gets  in  most  cities  at  the  present  day  by  going 
out  on  post  with  an  experienced  policeman  who  is  expected  to 
instruct  him  in  the  practical  performance  of  the  duties  of  a 
policeman.  Exceedingly  great  care  should  be  exercised  however 
in  the  selection  of  the  men  with  whom  police  recruits  are  sent 
out  on  post,  so  that  the  moral  influence  exerted  upon  the  young 
policeman  may  be  good. 

Not  only  should  police  recruits  be  carefully  instructed  by 
competent  teachers  in  the  school  of  instruction  but  it  would 
also  be  desirable  to  furnish  to  all  policemen  an  opportunity  to 
discuss  their  problems  with  men  who  are  able  to  advise  them 
and  show  them  intelligently  what  should  be  done  in  a  given 
state  of  facts.  Police  officers  are  cast  too  much  upon  their  own 
initiative  at  the  present  day.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  by 
putting  a  man  on  his  own  responsibility  strength  of  character 
and  power  of  determination  are  developed.  But  the  attitude 
of  some  of  our  American  police  departments  at  the  present  day 
seems  to  be  to  let  the  policeman  decide  for  himself  and  then 
punish  him  severely  for  any  error  which  he  may  make.  From 
the  policeman's  point  of  view  it  frequently  seems  as  if  he  will 
be  punished  if  he  does  a  thing  in  one  way  and  punished  if  he 
does  it  in  the  other  way.  The  most  prudent  course  for  him  to 
pursue  under  such  circumstances  is  to  refrain  from  doing  it  at 
all  and  shirk  his  duty.  However  satisfactory  this  course  of 
action  may  be  from  the  policeman's  personal  point  of  view  it  is 
bad  for  the  force  as  a  whole. 

A  school  of  instruction  should  be  maintained  in  every  police 
department  in  which  policemen  can  receive  competent  instruc- 
tion in  their  duties  and  in  the  elements  of  civics  and  criminal 
law.  Stupid  policemen  are  not  respected  and  their  errors  cause 
the  police  force  to  lose  much  of  the  respect  and  esteem  to  which 
it  ought  to  be  entitled.  Lack  of  knowledge  handicaps  the  police- 
man on  post  considerably  and  it  handicaps  the  superior  officer 
even  more.  Policemen  cannot  be  expected  to  study  carefully 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  299 

when  such  studying  must  be  done  at  times  which  should  normally 
be  devoted  to  relaxation.  Every  policeman  of  every  grade 
ought  by  the  rules  of  his  department  be  obliged  to  do  a  certain 
number  of  tours  of  duty  each  year  in  a  school  of  instruction, 
where  he  can  receive  instruction  and  submit  to  his  instructors 
the  problems  which  arise  in  the  line  of  his  duty  from  day  to  day 
and  receive  information  and  advice. 

A  clear  distinction  should  be  made  in  our  legislation  between 
vice  and  crime,  and  no  statute  should  attempt  to  punish  as  a 
crime  what  is  only  vicious,  when  the  cost  of  the  attempt  far 
outweighs  the  benefits  derived  therefrom.  Furthermore,  no 
statute  or  ordinance  should  be  enacted  unless  public  opinion 
insists  upon  its  enforcement;  otherwise  there  is  cast  upon  the 
police  force  a  temptation  too  great  for  human  nature  to  resist. 

In  the  present  paper  we  are  interested  only  in  the  organization 

of  the  police  force  and  not  primarily  in  its  personnel.     The  subject 

of  the  duties  of  the  police  is  one  to  be  reserved 

u  les  o  £or  a  £uture  paper  under  the  plan  of  treatment 

outlined  by  Professor  Hatton  at  the  last  meet- 
ing of  the  National  Municipal  League  in  Cincinnati.  The  en- 
actment of  impracticable  statutes  and  ordinances  which  no  one 
intends  to  have  enforced  is  however  so  demoralizing  to  the 
personnel  of  American  police  forces  that  it  deserves  serious  at- 
tention when  we  consider  the  organization  and  personnel  of 
American  police  forces. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  fact  that  as  a  body  the  in- 
dividual members  of  the  American  police  forces  are  better  men 
than  can  be  found  on  the  police  force  of  any  other  country  in  the 
world.  They  are  more  intelligent,  better  able  to  act  on  their 
own  initiative,  more  alert  in  their  attention  to  duty,  and  pos- 
sess probably  a  larger  degree  of  personal  courage  or  at  least 
are  willing  to  risk  their  lives  in  the  service  of  their  commu- 
nity more  readily  than  is  the  case  with  the  average  policeman 
in  foreign  countries.  Like  all  general  estimates  of  a  body  of 
men  varying  to  such  a  large  degree  as  do  the  members  of  the 
police  forces  of  the  different  American  cities,  this  statement 
must  be  accepted  with  the  limitations  to  which  all  general  state- 
ments are  subject;  but  as  an  average  statement  it  is  believed 


300  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

to  be  well  founded  and  in  accordance  with  the  weight  of  opinion 
of  the  best  informed  men  of  this  country  and  abroad.  If  the 
personnel  of  American  police  forces  is  certainly  as  good  as  that 
of  any  police  force  of  the  world  and  in  the  opinion  of  many 
far  superior  to  the  character  of  the  men  who  compose  the  police 
forces  of  other  countries  the  cause  for  the  unsatisfactory  char- 
acter of  American  police  administration  must  be  sought  outside 
of  the  personnel  of  the  department.  This  cause  can  be  found 
in  that  particular  in  which  police  administration  in  America  dif- 
fers most  radically  from  the  discharge  of  the  similar  police  func- 
tion in  European  countries.  The  laws  in  America  do  not  attempt 
to  distinguish  between  what  is  vicious  and  what  is  criminal. 

An  act  is  vicious  when  according  to  the  local  standards  of  a 
majority  of  the  citizens  of  a  country  in  which  the  citizens  them- 
selves make  the  laws  it  is  of  an  immoral  character.  Ethical 
standards  differ  and  change  according  to  the  time  and  place  of 
the  observation.  What  is  considered  proper  to-day  may  be  con- 
sidered vicious  in  a  few  years  and  what  is  considered  proper  in 
one  country  or  town  may  be  considered  vicious  in  another.  The 
drinking  of  alcoholic  liquor  to  excess,  though  considered  vicious 
to-day,  has  not  always  been  so  considered  and  while  in  some 
cities  of  the  United  States  any  indulgence  in  alcoholic  liquor  is 
considered  vicious,  other  cities  take  a  more  liberal  view  of  the 
matter  and  permit  indulgence  provided  such  indulgence  is  not 
carried  to  excess.  Whether  an  act  is  criminal  on  the  other  hand 
depends  upon  an  entirely  different  test.  An  act  is  criminal  when 
its  performance  is  forbidden  by  the  constituted  authorities  of 
the  state  and  a  violation  of  the  statute  is  punished  by  a  fine 
or  by  imprisonment.  An  act  ought  to  be  made  criminal  only 
when  it  is  socially  expedient  to  punish  it  criminally.  In  abstract 
theory  the  viciousness  of  the  act  ought  to  have  very  little  to  do 
with  the  matter.  The  state  may  find  it  necessary  to  prohibit 
acts  which  are  by  no  means  vicious  and  to  enforce  such  pro- 
hibitory statutes  with  a  penal  sanction.  To  store  building  ma- 
terial on  the  street  is  not  an  immoral  or  vicious  act  and  yet 
necessities  of  municipal  regulation  and  administration  require 
that  a  violation  of  an  ordinance  prohibiting  such  storage  be 
punished  criminally.  On  the  other  hand  many  vicious  acts  are 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  301 

not  punished  criminally.  Promiscuous  sexual  indulgence  is 
vicious  but  not  every  form  of  this  vice  is  punished  criminally. 

The  American  people  or  at  least  the  American  legislators  do 
not  make  this  clear  distinction  between  vice  and  crime.  There 
seems  to  be  a  feeling  in  this  country  that  unless  a  vice  is  made 
a  crime,  the  state  countenances  the  vice  and  becomes  a  party  to 
its  commission.  There  are  unfortunately  a  large  number  of  men 
in  the  community  who  believe  that  they  have  satisfied  the  de- 
mands made  upon  them  to  lead  a  virtuous  life  by  incorporating 
into  some  statute  the  condemnation  of  a  particular  vicious  act 
as  a  crime.  The  fallacy  of  the  reasoning  that  the  failure  to 
declare  a  vicious  act  a  crime  amounts  to  a  ratification  or  con- 
donation of  the  viciousness  of  the  act  needs  no  extended  explana- 
tion. The  declaration  of  the  criminality  of  the  act  is  simply 
a  question  of  expediency.  If  the  state  comes  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  costs  more  to  attempt  to  punish  a  vicious  act  criminally 
than  it  is  worth  to  the  community,  a  failure  to  prevent  it  by 
police  regulation  is  in  no  sense  a  countenancing  of  it. 

The  fact  that  the  cost  of  attempting  to  punish  as  a  crime  what 
is  only  vicious  far  outweighs  the  benefits  derived  therefrom  is 
undoubted  in  American  police  administration.  The  American 
police  forces  have  been  corrupted  almost  solely  by  the  statutes 
which  have  been  placed  on  the  statute  books,  regulating  the 
leisure  of  the  citizens.  Under  American  conditions  at  the  pres- 
ent day  it  is  possible  for  the  state  as  a  whole  to  regulate  the 
leisure  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  in  accordance  with  its  own 
puritanical  ideas.  The  state  may  regard  as  vicious  and  declare 
as  criminal  the  drinking  of  beer  on  Sunday,  because  a  large 
number  of  the  rural  inhabitants  of  the  state  believe  in  such  a  law 
while  in  the  cities  the  drinking  of  beer  on  Sunday  is  not  only 
not  regarded  as  vicious  but  it  may  be  perfectly  innocent  and  un- 
objectionable from  every  point  of  view.  The  enforcement  of 
this  puritanical  law  is  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  police  force 
which  is  recruited  from  citizens  of  the  city  and  which  is  con- 
trolled by  the  moral  influence  of  the  city. 

If  public  opinion  authorizes  the  enactment  of  statutes  which 
the  same  public  opinion  does  not  insist  upon  enforcing  or  if  the 
public  opinion  governing  the  making  of  the  laws  differs  from  the 


302  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLICE  FORCES 

public  opinion  which  regulates  their  enforcement,  there  is  cast 
upon  the  police  force  which  enforces  the  law  a  temptation  too- 
great  for  human  nature  to  resist.  If  corrupt  practices  are  likely 
to  result  when  too  much  discretion  is  vested  in  subordinate  offi- 
cers of  an  administrative  organization  who  are  unable  properly 
to  exercise  such  discretion,  it  is  much  more  likely  that  corruption 
will  result  when  such  subordinate  officers  are  ordered  to  enforce 
a  law  which  a  majority  of  the  citizens  not  only  refuse  to  obey 
but  also  believe  to  be  unjust.  At  the  present  day  there  is  no 
more  successful  get-rich-quick  institution  than  the  control  of 
an  American  municipal  police  force  and  in  making  this  statement 
neither  the  superior  officers  of  the  department  nor  the  sub- 
ordinates should  be  criticized  unduly,  since  this  unsatisfactory 
condition  is  due  almost  entirely  to  the  fact  that  what  the  state 
which  enacts  the  statutes  regards  as  criminal  the  people  of  the 
city  may  regard  as  innocent.  The  people  of  the  city  accordingly 
are  quite  satisfied  to  see  the  police  force  sell  the  right  to  dis- 
obey a  law  which  the  city  people  regard  as  unjustifiable. 

In  conclusion,  it  behooves  us  as  educated  men  to  treat  the 
policemen  of  our  cities  fairly.  The  very  nature  of  the  police- 
man's calling  is  of  such  a  character  that  generally  whenever  he 
does  his  duty  he  makes  several  enemies  and  only  by  neglecting 
to  do  his  duty  can  he  make  friends.  Inexperienced  commis- 
.  sioners,  impracticable  statutes  and  the  constant 

meddling  of  influential  politicians  make  his  lot 
an  unenviable  one.  When  there  are  statutes  on  the  statute  books 
which  he  is  given  power  and  ordered  to  enforce  and  which  al- 
most everyone  desires  to  see  unenforced,  there  is  offered  to  him 
a  temptation  which  it  is  hard  for  any  man  to  resist.  In  addi- 
tion, the  policemen  and  particularly  the  police  recruits  are  in 
most  American  cities  shamefully  underpaid.  Their  nominal 
pay  may  be  greater  than  the  wages  which  they  received  before 
joining  the  police  force,  but  this  nominal  pay  is  actually  con- 
siderably decreased  by  their  necessary  expenses  for  police  equip- 
ment, by  the  greater  personal  expenses  which  they  must  incur  to 
maintain  a  proper  social  standing  as  members  of  the  police 
force  and  by  the  readjustment  of  their  system  of  domestic  ac- 
counts and  book-keeping  due  to  the  fact  that  as  officers  they  are 


LEONHARD  FELIX  FULD  303 

paid  only  once  a  month  while  in  private  life  they  received  their 
wages  every  week. 

We  ought  not  to  believe  the  newspaper  stories  of  police  cor- 
ruption without  careful  investigation  and  when  investigation 
proves  them  to  be  true  we  should  condemn  the  system  which 
makes  such  conditions  possible  and  not  the  members  of  the  uni- 
formed force  who  are  its  victims.  No  policeman  can  long  com- 
mit official  misdeeds  which  impair  his  personal  integrity  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  his  precinct  commander  and  no  precinct 
commander  can  follow  a  similar  course  of  conduct  for  any 
appreciable  length  of  time  without  the  knowledge  of  the  head  of 
department  or  some  official  who  stands  close  to  the  head  of 
department.  When  the  citizens  of  any  community  find  that  their 
police  department  is  corrupt  they  should  seek  first  for  the  con- 
ditions which  cause  such  corruption  and  remedy  them  by  appro- 
priate legislation.  Next  they  should  remove  from  office  the 
superior  officers  to  whose  negligence  or  fault  the  corrupt  condi- 
tions are  due  and  punish  these  men  to  the  full  extent  of  the 
criminal  law.  And  finally  some  attention  should  be  paid  to  the 
police  patrolmen  who  may  have  stepped  aside  from  the  straight 
and  narrow  path.  It  may  be  necessary  to  punish  these  police- 
men, but  the  great  temptation  under  which  these  men  acted 
should  be  borne  in  mind  and  justice  should  be  tempered  with 
mercy  in  their  case. 

The  police  problem  in  our  American  cities  is  the  most  difficult 
administrative  problem  with  which  American  public  officers 
have  to  deal.  Every  educated  man  owes  it  to  himself  as  a 
Christian  duty  and  a  civic  duty  to  give  to  the  head  of  the  police 
department  such  moral  aid  and  assistance  by  means  of  construc- 
tive suggestions  as  he  may  be  able  to  supply.  We  should  not 
criticize  unless  we  are  able  to  suggest  improvements;  we  should 
criticize  methods  rather  than  men;  we  should  work  with  public 
officers  and  not  against  them ;  we  should  strive  for  practicability 
and  non-partisanship  in  police  administration. 


An   Effective  Civil  Service    Law  in    Cities. 

By  ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN,  NEW  YORK  CITY, 

Secretary  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League. 

I  trust  that  this  discussion  of  civil  service  reform  in  municipal 
government  will  not  be  considered  too  technical.     Once  a  prin- 
ciple has  received  acceptance,  we  proceed  to  the 

Merit  bystem  means  of  making  that  principle  effective  in  prac- 
Fundamental 

tice.     I  start  from  the  point  of  view  that  the 

merit  system  has  been  accepted  by  municipal  reformers,  not 
merely  as  a  valuable  adjunct  to  reform  along  other  lines,  but  as 
a  basic,  governmental  principle  upon  which  the  successful  out- 
come of  other  reforms  advocated  by  this  League  is  to  a  very  large 
degree  dependent. 

This  point  of  view,  which  elsewhere  might  be  attributed  to  a 
narrow  and  blind  devotion  to  the  cause  in  which  I  am  engaged, 
certainly  needs  no  argument  to  support  it  before  the  National 
Municipal  League.  More  than  ten  years  ago,  the  League's  prin- 
ciples of  municipal  government  were  embodied  in  a  Municipal 
Program,  which  has  stood  the  test  of  time  and  experience  in  a 
remarkable  way  and  has  had  a  most  important  influence  on  muni- 
cipal development  in  this  country.  One  of  the  corner-stones  of 
this  model  fabric  of  municipal  government  is  the  provision  for 
the  merit  system  in  the  municipal  code  in  detail,  so  that  the  main 
lines  of  its  administration  and  enforcement  can  not  be  altered  at 
the  passing  whim  of  a  new  city  legislature  or  the  entrance  into 
office  of  a  new  administration. 

The  acceptance  of  civil  service  reform  as  a  fundamental  prin- 
ciple in  municipal  government  has,  however,  gone  far  beyond 

the    boundaries    of    the    National     Municipal 
Its  Wide 
.        ,  League.     Its  importance  has  almost  invariably 

been  recognized  wherever  and  whenever  a  move- 
ment has  been  started  to  better  local  conditions.  At  the  present 
time  civil  service  rules  in  some  form  or  other  are  in  force  in  over 
200  cities  in  the  United  States;  and  indeed  this  is  probably  an 

(304) 


ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN  305 

underestimate,  because  of  the  rapid  progress  of  the  movement 
for  the  commission  form  of  government,  which  usually  carries 
with  it  the  merit  principle.  Other  evidence  of  the  acceptance  and 
success  in  operation  of  the  merit  system  lies  in  the  fact  that  there 
are  but  three  instances  of  cities  that,  having  once  adopted  it, 
have  later  retreated  from  it.  In  Galveston,  it  was  swept  away 
by  the  flood  and  was  not  incorporated  in  the  new  plan  for  com- 
mission government;  in  New  Orleans,  the  return  of  the  ring  to 
power  in  1900  brought  about  partial  repeal  of  civil  service  pro- 
visions inserted  in  the  charter  in  1896;  in  Tacoma,  where  it  was 
adopted  by  popular  vote  in  1895,  it  was  repealed  the  following 
year,  but  the  recent  institution  of  commission  government  in 
that  city  has  brought  it  into  force  again. 

Such  widespread  acceptance  and  adoption  of  the  principle 
should  lead  to  a  careful  consideration  of  the  legislation  enacted 
and  machinery  instituted  to  bring  about  its  practical  enforce- 
ment; and  it  is  to  this  point  that  I  would  direct  your  attention, 
for  the  purpose  of  having  the  League  realize  the  importance  to  its 
whole  program  of  civic  development  of  securing  proper  and  ef- 
fective legislation  and  machinery  where  both  to-day  are  in  many 
instances  strikingly  defective. 

In  approximately  one-third  of  the  cities  in  which  the  merit 
system  is  in  force,  the  administration  of  the  civil  service  law  is 
subject  to  state  control.  These  are  the  48  cities  in 
New  York  State  and  33  cities  in  Massachusetts. 
New  York  is  the  only  state  in  the  Union  to  provide  in  its  con- 
stitution for  civil  service  reform  throughout  the  state  and  its 
subordinate  civil  divisions.  The  language  of  Article  V,  Section 
9  of  the  Constitution,  providing  that  all  appointments  and  promo- 
tions shall  be  made  for  merit  and  fitness,  to  be  ascertained,  so 
far  as  practicable,  by  competitive  examination,  was  broad  enough 
to  justify  the  establishment  of  a  state  civil  service  commission 
which  should  exercise  jurisdiction  and  conduct  the  examinations 
in  all  municipalities,  but  the  legislature,  in  its  wisdom,  has  pro- 
vided for  city  civil  service  commissions  appointed  by  the  mayor. 
They  are,  however,  subject  in  all  they  do  to  the  supervision  of 
the  state  commission,  which  has  power  to  remove  local  commis- 
sioners and  appoint  the  successors  of  those  removed.  While  the 


306        AN  EFFECTIVE  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  IN  CITIES 

magnitude  of  first-class  cities,  New  York,  Buffalo  and  Rochester, 
justifies  the  existence  of  local  boards  closely  in  touch  with  the 
needs  of  the  municipality,  it  is  doubtful  whether  this  is  the  case 
with  second-class  cities,  and  I  fully  concur  in  the  recommendation 
of  the  New  York  State  Commission  that  local  commissions  in 
third-class  cities — those  under  fifty  thousand — should  be  abol- 
ished and  direct  control  should  be  exercised  by  the  state  commis- 
sion, as  is  now  the  case  in  classified  counties  and  villages.  It  has 
been  proved  in  practice  that  the  service  in  third-class  cities  is  not 
large  enough  to  justify  the  expense  of  the  institution  of  separate 
machinery  adequate  to  carrying-out  the  law  effectively. 

Massachusetts,  by  the  civil-service  law  enacted  in  1884,  places 
the  civil  service  of  all  cities  in  the  state  under  the  direct  control 
of  a  state  civil  service  commission,  appointed  by  the  governor. 
In  this  way,  to  an  even  greater  degree  than  in  New  York,  the 
enforcement  of  the  law  is  removed  from  the  influence  of  local 
politics. 

Two  other  states,  Colorado  and  New  Jersey,  recognize  this 
principle  of  state  control  in  their  civil  service  laws,  by  providing 
that  cities  that  adopt  the  act  shall  thereby  come  under  the  direct 
control  of  the  state  civil  service  commission.  In  Colorado,  how- 
ever, no  cities  have  as  yet  seen  fit  to  adopt  the  act,  while  in  New 
Jersey  the  highest  court  has  recently  held  unconstitutional  that 
part  of  the  act  under  which  several  cities  adopted  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  state  commission  by  action  of  their  governing  boards.  In 
these  particular  cities  it  is  expected  that  the  citizens  will  at  once 
resort  to  the  more  usual  form  of  referendum  by  popular  vote, 
and  in  this  way  New  Jersey  will  furnish  another  example  of 
state  control  of  the  administration  of  civil  service  laws  in  cities. 

The  next  class  of  civil  service  cities  are  those  in  which  there 

are  local  civil  service  commissions  established  under  general  laws 

of  the  state.    The  best  example  is  furnished  by 

Ooca  .    .  the  four 1  cities  in  Illinois,  including  Chicago, 

Commissions  ,  .  , 

which  have  by  popular  vote  adopted  the  pro- 
visions of  a  general  act  passed  by  the  legislature  in  1895.  Under 
the  Municipal  Corporations  Act,  cities  in  Illinois  are  unusually 

1  Chicago,  Evanston,  Springfield,  Waukegan. 


ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN  307 

free  from  state  interference  in  local  affairs,  and  as  the  law  of 
1895  is  now  in  force  in  four  cities  and  will  apply  to  as  many  more 
as  see  fit  to  adopt  it,  it  enjoys  a  certain  stability  and  is  not  liable 
to  change  for  the  purpose  of  affecting  political  conditions  in  a 
particular  city.  Another  example,  which  has  not  yet  stood  the 
test  of  experience,  is  furnished  by  cities  in  Ohio,  subject  to  a 
general  municipal  corporations  act  containing  mandatory  civil 
service  provisions. 

Most  of  the  other  cities  under  civil  service  rules  have  obtained 
the  benefits  of  the  merit  system  by  legislation,  general  in  name 
but  special  in  character,  or  by  charter  provision.  The  civil  ser- 
vice in  Philadelphia,  Pittsburgh,  Scranton  and  Milwaukee  is 
under  laws  theoretically  applying  to  a  class,  but  in  fact  applying 
to  a  particular  city,  or  at  most,  to  two  cities. 2  It  is  in  cities 
in  which  the  merit  system  is  established  by  special  laws  or  by 
charter  provision,  and  where  no  state  control  or  state  supervision 
exist,  that  the  poorest  results  are  obtained.  There  the  civil  ser- 
vice law  is  sometimes  a  law  in  name  only,  observed  rather  in 
breacn  than  in  performance.  Enforcement  or  non-enforcement 
follow  logically  and  directly  from  the  attitude  of  the  administra- 
tion in  power  toward  the  civil  service  law.  Before  turning  to 
the  remedy  for  these  conditions,  however,  we  should  have  in 
mind  the  reasons  which  make  a  civil  service  law  peculiarly  dif- 
ficult of  enforcement. 

Civil  service  laws  have  a  two- fold  purpose :  first  and  foremost, 
to  restrain  appointing  officers  from  using  administrative  positions 

as  political  spoils:  secondly,  to  establish  a  cen- 
Purnose  of 

Me  t  Sv  tern  tra^  emPl°vment  bureau,  ready  promptly  to  pro- 
vide fit  incumbents  to  fill  any  vacancy.  An 
anomaly  is  at  once  apparent  where  the  mayor  is  permitted  to  ap- 
point the  civil  service  commissioners,  whose  duty  it  is  to  restrain 
him  and  the  other  members  of  the  administration  in  the  carrying- 
out  of  their  political  ambitions  and  desires.  Yet  this  is  the  case 
in  all  cities  in  which  state  control  of  the  administration  of  the 
civil  service  law  does  not  exist.  Again,  in  many  cities  the  civil 
service  commissioners  have  neither  term  nor  tenure  sufficient  to 

2  Pittsburgh  and  Scranton,  the  second-class  cities  of  Pennsylvania. 


AN  EFFECTIVE  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  IN  CITIES 

prevent  the  mayor  from  removing  them  for  a.  failure  to  comply 
with  his  wishes  in  matters  of  patronage.  In  Philadelphia,  for 
instance,  the  civil  service  commission  was  established  under 
Mayor  Weaver,  and  the  law  was  well  enforced,  but  his  immediate 
successor,  Mayor  Reyburn,  found  no  real  difficulty  in  removing 
all  the  commissioners  and  appointing  more  tractable  successors, 
of  whom  he  is  quoted  as  saying,  "  They  do  not  know  how  to 
twist  the  law  to  meet  emergencies.  .  .  .  They  have  not  got  used 
to  their  collars  yet  and  they  rub  a  little."  The  three  commission- 
ers heeded  this  chaste  rebuke  and  are  still  in  office. 

In  those  cities  in  which  no  state  control  of  civil  service  ad- 
ministration exists  there  is  almost  invariably  another  striking  in- 
consistency. To  put  the  law  into  operation,  rules  are  necessary. 
These  are  framed  in  the  first  instance  by  the  civil  service  com- 
mission, but  are  then  subject  to  approval  by  the  mayor  or  council. 
This  means  that  the  mayor  or  council  has  the  power  to  say  to 
what  extent  the  merit  system  shall  be  enforced,  unless  all  the 
provisions  necessary  to  real  enforcement  are  contained  in  the  law 
or  charter  itself. 

This  point  is  most  clearly  illustrated  in  the  case  of  charters 
providing  for  the  commission  form  of  government.  I  have  ex- 
amined many  of  them,  but  I  have  yet  to  find 

Commission  •        *••'.«        •  M 

p"  one  in  which  the  civil   service  provisions  are 

adequate  to  secure  proper  enforcement.  Heed- 
ing the  general  rule  that  a  charter  should  contain  general  prin- 
ciples— not  detailed  legislation — the  authors  have,  in  many  cases, 
included  little  more  than  a  general  provision  that  a  civil  service 
commission  should  be  established  and  the  rule  of  competition 
shall  apply  to  appointments,  leaving  it  to  the  city  council  to  make 
these  provisions  effective  by  ordinance  or  by  rules  subject  to  their 
approval.  The  general  rule  as  to  charter  making  is  sound,  but  it 
clearly  does  not  apply  to  civil  service  provisions.  The  experts 
who  drafted  the  Program  of  the  National  Municipal  League 
were  keenly  alive  to  that  general  rule  but  recognized  the  neces- 
sity for  inserting  detailed  provisions  for  civil  service  reform. 
To  fail  to  do  so  is  to  sacrifice  the  efficiency  of  the  merit  system. 
It  is  plainly  impractical  to  secure  uniform  and  thorough  enforce- 
ment if,  in  order  to  make  the  charter  provisions  effective,  rules 


ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN  309 

or  ordinances  must  be  approved  by  the  very  officers  whose 
action  it  is  sought  to  restrain. 

The  Colorado  Springs  charter,  one  of  the  latest  and  most  com- 
plete of  the  commission  charters,  is  a  case  in  point  and  I  quote 
its  civil  service  provisions  below.1  To  make  the  merit  system 
effective  in  two  departments,  rules  and  regulations  approved  by 
the  council  were  necessary;  to  extend  it  to  other  departments  an 
ordinance  of  the  council  was  required.  The  adequacy  of  such 
rules,  regulations  and  ordinances  were  left  to  depend  entirely 
upon  the  good-will  toward  the  merit  system  of  the  council,  made 
up  of  appointing  officers. 

Now  having  examined  the  different  forms  of  municipal  civil 
service  legislation  and  the  difficulties  in  the  way 

of  enforcement,  let  us  briefly  consider  the  reme- 
State  Control  „     . 

dies.    By  far  the  most  effective  and  far-reaching 

is  state  control,  as  in  Massachusetts,  or  state  supervision  of  the 

1  ARTICLE  XVIII. 

CIVIL   SERVICE. 

148.  Commission.    There  is  hereby  established  a  civil  service  commis- 
•ion,  consisting  of  three  members,  who  will  serve  without  compensation. 

The  council  first  elected  after  the  adoption  of  this  charter  shall,  as  soon 
as  practicable  thereafter,  appoint  one  member  of  said  commission  to  serve 
for  two  years,  another  member  to  serve  for  four  years,  and  a  third  mem- 
ber to  'Serve  for  six  years.  Biennially  thereafter  one  member  shall  be 
appointed  by  the  council  to  take  the  place  of  the  member  whose  term  shall 
next  expire,  so  that  one  member  shall  be  appointed  every  two  years  to 
serve  for  a  period  of  six  years.  If  a  vacancy  shall  occur  in  the  commis- 
sion, it  shall  be  filled  by  appointment  by  the  council  for  the  unexpired  term. 

149.  Commission  make  rules.    The  commission  shall,  with  the  approval 
of  the  council,  make  such  rules  and  regulations  for  the  proper  conduct  of 
its  business  as  it  shall  find  necessary  or  expedient.    The  commission  shall, 
among  other  things,  provide  for  the  classification  of  all  employments  in 
the  department  of  public  safety  and  in  the  department  of  public  works 
and  property  for  open,  competitive  and  free  examinations  as  to  fitness; 
for  an  eligible  list  from  which  vacancies  shall  be  filled ;  for  a  period  of 
probation  before  employment  is  made  permanent;  and  for  promotion  on 
the  basis  of  merit,  experience  and  record. 

750.  Council  give  -further  powers.  The  council,  whenever  requested  by 
the  commission,  may  by  ordinance  confer  upon  the  commission  such  other 
or  further  rights,  duties  and  privileges  as  may  be  necessary  adequately  to- 
enforce  and  carry  out  the  principles  of  civil  service. 


3io 


AN  EFFECTIVE  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  IN  CITIES 


work  of  local  commissions,  as  in  New  York.  I  do  not  con- 
sider that  these  raise  any  legitimate  question  of  home  rule.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  they  furnish  the  only  complete  remedy 
for  administration  of  the  law  tempered  by  local  politics  and  they 
bring  about  stability  and  uniformity  of  enforcement  The  use 
of  local  offices  as  political  spoils  is  simply  a  form  of  bribery  and 
the  state  may  well  in  its  own  interest  legislate  against  it.  Such 
legislation,  if  in  the  form  of  general  laws  enforcing  a  state  policy 
in  a  matter  in  which  the  state  is  vitally  interested,  is  beyond  the 
cavil  of  even  the  most  ardent  home  ruler. 

But  while  state  supervision  or  state  control  may  be  looked  to 
as  the  ultimate  goal,  we  all  recognize  that  frequently  the  spirit 

of  reform  is  far  more  alive  and  urgent  in  the 
Term  ana  Tenure  -^.  t^  •  ^  state  and  experience  has  shown 
of  Commissions  ,  J 

that  much  may  be  accomplished  for  better  cmc 

conditions  without  these  safeguards,  provided  the  civil  service 
laws  or  charter  provisions  are  adequate.  As  the  mayor  or  council 
will  have  the  appointment  of  the  civil  service  commission,  I 
believe  the  insertion  of  the  following  provisions  absolutely  essen- 
tial to  a  proper  enforcement  of  the  law. 

First.  The  commissioners  must  be  appointed  for  terms  and 
these  terms  made  to  overlap  so  that,  at  all  times,  a  majority  of 
the  commission  should  be  made  up  of  those  who  have  had 
previous  service.  A  provision  for  a  commission  of  three,  not 
more  than  two  of  whom  shall  be  of  the  same  political  party,  ap- 
pointed for  six-year  terms,  one  vacancy  occurring  every  two 
years,  seems  to  be  the  best  yet  devised  to  accomplish  this  object. 

Second.  The  term  will  accomplish  little  or  nothing  unless  a 
tenure  is  attached  to  it  sufficient  to  prevent  the  mayor  or  council 
from  coercing  the  action  of  the  commission  by  threat  of  removal. 
A  provision  that  removal  shall  be  for  cause  only  and  after  a  hear- 
ing, but  without  review  by  the  courts,  will  permit  the  mayor  to 
get  rid  of  an  inefficient  or  dishonest  commissioner  and  at  the  same 
time  protect  the  commission  against  coercion  in  their  administra- 
tion of  the  law. 

Third.  All  provisions  essential  to  a  proper  enforcement  of 
the  merit  system  should  be  contained  in  the  law  or  charter  itself, 
so  that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  system  shall  not  be  dependent  on  the 


ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN  311 

action  of  a  shifting  or  politically-elected  mayor  or  council  and, 

on  the  other,  the  commission  may  be  held  to 

Charter    strict  account  for  jts  derelictions  by  the  courts. 

It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  this  would  require 
the  padding  of  a  charter  with  very  lengthy  and  detailed  provi- 
sions ;  some  little  experience  in  the  drafting  of  civil  service  laws 
leads  me  to  believe  that  even  the  provisions  for  the  merit  system 
in  the  Program  of  this  League  might  be  abbreviated  without 
danger  to  the  efficiency  of  that  system. 

Fourth.    The  civil  service  commission  should  have  power  to 
make  rules,  after  proper  notice  and  hearing,  without  a  require- 
ment for  approval  by  mayor  or  council.     Such 
Power  of  rules  are  neither  laws  nor  ordinances.    If  they 

Commission  to  beyond  the  powers  conferred  by  the  law, 

Make  Rules  .         \  3         ... 

they  are  ultra  vires,  and  the  courts  provide  a 

sufficient  safeguard  against  any  abuse  of  power.  Approval  by 
mayor  or  council  subjects  the  efficiency  of  the  civil  service  com- 
mission to  that  political  influence  which  it  is  specially  created  to 
prevent  and  leads  to  change  in  the  rules  with  each  recurring  elec- 
tion. A  power  of  approval  in  mayor  or  council  may  lead  to  con- 
ditions such  as  exist  in  Des  Moines  and  Cedar  Rapids,  where 
the  rules  approved  by  the  council  are  not  as  stringent  as  the 
charter  provisions  and  cannot  even  pretend  to  conform  to  them." 
These  four  provisions,  essential  to  stable  and  efficient  enforce- 
ment of  municipal  civil  service  laws,  involve  a  radical  departure 
from  existing  systems  but  do  not,  to  my  mind,  infringe  any 
principle  of  municipal  government.  Some  would  argue  that 
to  create  a  commission  semi-independent  of  the  mayor  and 
city  council  is  to  divide  responsibility  and  prevent  concentra- 
tion of  authority.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  so  far 
as  this  is  true,  it  is  true  in  like  degree  of  any  civil  service  law, 
which  is  for  the  purpose  of  restricting  the  power  of  the  mayor 
and  his  administrative  officers  in  making  appointments  and,  to 
the  extent  that  it  does  restrict,  it  unquestionably  lessens  his  re- 

1  The  rules  in  Des  Moines  require  the  certification  of  five  names 
and  in  Cedar  Rapids  three  names  to  fill  one  vacancy,  where  the  charter 
provides  that  the  commission  shall  certify  twice  the  number  of  'the  vacan- 
cies to  be  filled. 


3I2        AN  EFFECTIVE  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  IN  CITIES 

sponsibility.  If  this  restriction  is  necessary — as  experience  lead* 
us  to  believe — in  order  to  prevent  the  abuse  of  public  office  for 
political  ends,  no  one  should  quarrel  with  the  provisions  essential 
to  making  the  restriction  effective.  An  analysis  of  its  functions 
shows  that  a  civil  service  commission  has  no  connection  what- 
ever with  the  policy  of  the  mayor  or  his  administration;  it  is 
instituted  simply  to  provide  them  with  the  necessary  tools  for 
carrying-out  that  policy  and  to  prevent  the  use  of  improper  tools. 
A  position,  therefore,  independent  of  coercion  by  the  city  ad- 
ministration is  as  harmless  and  at  the  same  time  as  necessary  as 
in  the  case  of  municipal  courts. 

APPENDIX. 
CLASSIFICATION  OF  MUNICIPAL  Crvn.  SEBVICE  LAWS. 

(The  population  figures  are  for  ipoo.) 
Under  State  Control: 

I.  State  central  commission — mandatory  for  all  cities: 
Massachusetts:  33  cities. 

Beverly 13,884  Medford    18,244 

Boston   560,892  Melrose   12,962 

Brockton  40,063  New  Bedford 62,442 

Cambridge    91,886  Newburyport   14.478 

Chelsea    34,072  Newton    33,587 

Chicopee    19,167  North  Adams  24,200 

Everett    24,336  Northampton   18,643 

Fall  River  104,862  Pittsfield    21,766 

Fitchburg    31,531  Quincy   23,899 

Gloucester  26,121  Salem  35,956 

Haverhill  37,175  Sommerville 61,643 

Holyoke    4&7I2  Springfield    62,056 

Lawrence    62,559  Taunton    31,036 

Lowell 94969  Walton    23,481 

Lynn  68,513  Woburn  14,254 

Maiden    33,664  Worcester  118,421 

Marlboro    13,609 

II.  State  central  commission  —  cities  subject  to  control  upon  refei- 
endum: 

Colorado:    No  cities  have  adopted. 

New  Jersey:     Newark  (246,070)  and  East  Orange  (21,506). 


ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN 


313 


III.  Mandatory  local  commissions 
and  a  measure  of  control  by 

New  York:    48  cities. 

Albany   94,151 

Amsterdam  20,929 

Auburn    3O,345 

Binghamton    39,647 

Buffalo  352,387 

Cohoes   23,910 

Corning   1 1,061 

Cortland    9,014 

Dunkirk    1 1,616 

Elmira     35,672 

Fulton   5,281 

Geneva    10,433 

Glen  Falls  12,613 

Gloversville    18,349 

Hornell 11,918 

Hudson    9,258 

Ithaca  13,136 

Jamestown    22,892 

Johnstown    10,130 

Kingston 24,535 

Little  Falls  10,381 

Lockport   16,581 

Middletown 14,522 

Mount  Vernon   21,228 


for  all  cities,  subject  to  supervision 
state  central  commission: 

Newburgh    24943 

New  'Rochelle 14720 

New   York    3,437,202 

Niagara  Falls  19,457 

North  Tonawanda 9,069 

Ogdensburg  12,633 

Olean    9,462 

Oneida 6,364 

Oneonta    7,*47 

Oswego    22,199 

Plattsburgh    8,434 

Port-Jervis    9,385 

Poughkeepsie    24029 

Rensselaer   7,466 

Rochester 162,608 

Rome  15,343 

Schenectady 91,682 

Syracuse    108,374 

Tonawanda 7,421 

Troy    60,651 

Utica   56,383 

Watertown 21,696 

Watervliet    14321 

Yonkers    47,931 


Local  Commissions  under  General  Laws: 
I.  Mandatory  for  all  cities: 

(a)  Ohio:     71  Cities. 

Akron  42,728 

Alliance 8,974 

Ashtabula.  12,949 

Bellaire 9,912 

Bellefontaine 6,649 

Bowling  Green   5,067 

Bucyrus   6,560 

Cambridge 8,247 

Canal  Dover 5,422 

Canton   30,667 

Chillicothe 12,976 

Cincinnati 325,902 

Circleville 6,991 

Cleveland 381,768 


Columbus 125,560 

Conneaut  7,133 

Coshocton   6,473 

Dayton  85,333 

Defiance  7,579 

Delaware  7,94O 

East  Liverpool 16,485 

Elyria  8,791 

Findlay 17,613 

Fostoria  7,73O 

Fremont    8,439 

Galion    7,282 

Gallipolis    5,432 

Glenville    5,588 


314 


AN  EFFECTIVE  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  IN  CITIES 


Greenville    5,V>i 

Hamilton  23,914 

Ironton 1 1,868 

Kenton  6,852 

Lancaster    8,991 

Lima    21,723 

Lorain    16,028 

Mansfield    17,640 

Marietta 13,348 

Marion  1 1,862 

Martin's  Ferry   7,760 

Massilon    1 1,944 

Middletown    9,215 

Mt.  Vernon   6,633 

Nelsonville    5,421 

Newark    i8,i57 

Newburgh  5,909 

New  Philadelphia 6,213 

Niles  7,468 

Norwalk    7,074 

Norwood  6,480 

Painesville    5»°24 


Piqua    12,172 

Portsmouth 17,870 

St.    Mary's     5,359 

Salem   7,582 

Sandusky    19,664 

Sidney    5,688 

Springfield 38,253 

Steubenville    14,349 

Tiffin    10,989 

Toledo    131,822 

Troy    5  881 

Urbana    6,808 

Van  Wert  6,422 

Warren    8,529 

Washington  Court  House  .  5,751 

Wellston    8,045 

Wellsville    6,146 

Wooster    6,063 

Xenia.  8,696 

Youngstown     44,885 

Zanesville    23,538 


(b)  Wisconsin — police  and  fire  services  in  cities  over  10,000: 


16  cities. 

Appleton    15,085 

Ashland  13,074 

Beloit   10,433 

Eau  Claire  17,517 

Fond  du  Lac  I5,uo 

Green  Bay 18,684 

Janesville    13,185 

Kenosha 11,606 

II.  Upon  Referendum : 

(a)  Illinois:    4  cities. 

Chicago    1,698,575 

Evanston    19,259 


Lacrosse    28,895 

Manitowoc    1 1,786 

Marinette    16,195 

Milwaukee 285,315 

Oshkosh    28,284 

Racine    29,102 

Sheboygan 22,962 

Superior 31,091 


Waukegan    9,426 

Springfield    34.159 


(b)  Illinois — police  and  fire  services :     5  cities. 

Aurora  24,147      Peoria    56,100 

Elgin  22,433      Streator  14,079 

Rockford  31,051 


ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN  315 

111.  Mandatory  for  certain  classes  of  cities    (designed   for  particular 
cities)  : 

(a)  Philadelphia    1,293,697 

Pittsburgh    321,616 

Scranton   102,026 

Milwaukee    285,315 

(b)  Police  and  fire  services  only : 

New  Jersey :  Jersey  City 206,433 

Charter  Provisions: 

I.  Commission  Plan : 

Washington : 

Tacoma    37,714 

California : 

Berkeley    13,214 

San   Diego    17,700 

Colorado : 

Colorado    Springs    21,085 

Grand  Junction    3,505 

Kansas : 

Wichita  24,671 

Leavenworth    20,735 

Kansas  City   51,418 

Hutchinson   9,379 

Topeka    33,6o8 

Parsons    7,682 

Anthony    2,026 

Independence     4,851 

Coffeyville    4,953 

South  Carolina: 

Columbia    21,108 

Iowa: 

Des   Moines    62,139 

Cedar   Rapids    25,656 

Burlington    23,201 

Keokuk 14,641 

>II.  Special  Charters: 

(a)  Provision  in  general  terms: 

(1)  Applying  to  entire  service: 

Virginia :  Norfolk   46,624 

Connecticut :  New  Haven   108,027 

(2)  Applying  to  parts  of  service: 

Minnesota :   Duluth    52,969 

(Police,  fire  and  clerical.) 

V/est  Virginia:  Wheeling 38,878 

(Fire  and  waterworks  services.) 


3ifl        AN  EFFECTIVE  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  IN  CITIES 

(b)  Specific  Provisions: 

(1)  Applying  to  entire  service: 
Washington : 

Seattle    80,671 

Bellingham    35,70O 

California: 

San  Francisco 342,782 

Los    Angeles    102,479 

Long  Beach   15,000 

Oregon : 

Portland    90,426 

Missouri : 

Kansas  City   163,752 

Tennesse : 

Memphis 102,320 

Michigan : 

Detroit   285,704 

(2)  Applying  to  parts  of  service: 
Colorado : 

Denver   133.859 

(Police,  fire  and  public  utilities;  council  may  ex- 
tend to  other  branches.) 
Miscellaneous: 

Maryland:  Baltimore   508,957 

Charter  provisions  for  public  schools. 
Special  law  for  police  department 
Ordinance  for  fire  department. 

NOTE. — Public  school  systems : — Generally,  where  there  are  civil  servic* 
laws,  the  teaching  forces  of  the  public  schools  are  excepted  from  the 
operation  of  the  law  and  rules.  In  New  York  City,  by  charter  provision 
the  teaching  staff  is  selected  through  competitive  examination.  In  Boston, 
the  teaching  force  of  the  public  school  system  is  also  selected  through 
competition. 

EDITOR'S  NOTE. — At  the  request  of  the  National  Municipal  League,  Mr. 
Goodwin  has  prepared  a  model  civil  service  law  for  cities,  which  will  be 
printed  in  the  Appendix  of  the  Proceedings.  For  the  exact  page  se* 
Index. 


The  Practical  Workings  of  Woman  Suffrage 
in  Colorado  Municipalities. 

By  MISS  MARY  WINSOR,  HAVERFORD,  PA., 

President  Pennsylvania  Limited  Suffrage  League.1 

1  This  report  is  based  on  fifty  letters  received  from  Colorado  Springs, 
Grand  Junction,  Denver  and  other  towns  in  Colorado,  in  reply  to  the 
questions  in  the  circular  given  hereafter. 

The  time  given  us  by  the  National  Municipal  League  in  which  to  con- 
duct this  investigation  was  quite  short,  and  we  were  unable  to  get  our 
circulars  and  letters  ready  until  July,  and  were  therefore  unable  to  send 
out  as  many  as  we  wished.  As  we  were  limited  to  several  hundred  for 
Colorado,  we  took  care  to  send  them  to  representative  men  and  women, 
prominent  in  city  and  state,  who  could  speak  not  merely  for  themselves, 
but  for  others;  who,  in  many  cases,  held  official  positions  and  repre- 
sented clubs  or  organizations. 

In  order  that  the  replies  we  shall  quote  here  may  not  seem  anonymous 
and  that  the  reader  may  see  that  those  we  interviewed  are  entitled  to 
speak  with  authority,  we  submit  the  following  names  as  being  among 
those  to  whom  we  sent  out  circulars  and  letters : 

Governor  John  F.  Shafroth,  Mrs.  Harry  Landon  Hollister,  President 
Colorado  State  Federation  of  Women's  Clubs;  Mrs.  Sprigg  Shackleford, 
District  President  of  the  "  Western  Slope "  of  the  Federation ;  Mrs.  J. 
K.  Gravett,  First  Vice-President  of  the  Federation;  Mrs.  Mary  C.  C. 
Bradford,  ex-President  of  the  Federation  and  County  Superintendent  of 
Schools  for  Denver;  Miss  Ellis  Meredith,  Election  Commissioner;  Mrs. 
Stanley  Casper,  President  of  the  State  Board  of  Charities  and  Correc- 
tions; State  Senator  A.  V.  Boker;  Mrs.  Alma  V.  Lafferty  (the  woman 
member  of  the  House  of  Representatives) ;  Mr.  Thomas  V.  Howell, 
Chairman  House  Committee  on  Corporations ;  Mr.  C.  E.  Chadsey,  Super- 
intendent School  District  in  our  city  of  Denver;  the  Rev.  John  M. 
Houghton,  Rector  of  St.  Mark's  church,  Denver;  Mrs.  E.  A.  Wixson,  of 
the  Colorado  Congress  of  Mothers;  Mr.  Omar  E.  Garwood,  Deputy  Dis- 
trict-Attorney of  Denver;  Mr.  R.  W.  Chisholm,  of  Colorado  Springs. 

The  Colorado  State  Federation  of  Women's  Clubs  numbers  over  six 
thousand  women,  and  we  thought  the  opinions  of  the  officers  and  mem- 
bers of  the  Federation  would  be  very  valuable,  as  the  Federation  has 
been  active  in  obtaining  good  laws.  It  was  Mr.  Woodruff's  wish  that 
we  should  obtain  facts  and  a  record  of  what  has  been  done,  either  for 
good  or  evil,  through  woman  suffrage.  He  also  wanted  to  know  how 

(317) 


3i8        PRACTICAL  WORKINGS  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 

these  results  had  been  obtained.  At  first  I  thought  that  women's  political 
methods  would  not  differ  from  men's  political  methods,  but  after  a  study 
of  woman  suffrage  in  the  four  enfranchised  states  I  ascertained  that  one 
very  powerful  instrument  used  by  women  is  this  state  federation.  It  is 
composed  of  all  sorts  and  kinds  of  women's  clubs — musical,  literary,  cul- 
tural, dramatic,  miscellaneous,  philanthropic  and  civic.  Such  clubs  are 
organized  into  federations  in  nearly  every  state  in  the  Union  and  are  a 
power  for  good  everywhere.  The  interest  in  civics  is  growing  rapidly, 
and  the  civic  clubs  are  increasing  in  number  and  in  membership.  I  know 
of  no  similar  organization  among  men. 

We  sent  to  the  officers  of  the  Federation  and  the  individual  clubs  not 
merely  the  municipal  circular,  but  also  a  special  circular  with  questions 
as  to  the  effect  of  woman  suffrage  on  the  federation  itself.  We  asked 
whether  the  suffrage  had  been  a  help  or  a  hindrance  to  the  federation, 
and  whether  the  official  activities  of  the  federation  had  remained  non- 
partisan.  The  officers  of  the  federation  returned  favorable  and  even 
enthusiastic  replies.  The  very  few  unfavorable  replies  came  from  mem- 
bers of  clubs  who  in  no  case  claimed  to  represent  their  clubs  but  spoke 
only  their  individual  opinions. 

The  non-partisan  activity  of  the  federation  is  a  point  of  great  interest. 
In  manhood  suffrage  states  the  non-partisan  element  is  largely  out  of 
politics,  but  in  Colorado  it  is  in  politics  and  armed  with  the  ballot,  and 
has  remained  non-partisan  in  spite  of  the  ballot.  The  bulk  of  the  testi- 
mony that  we  received  was  to  the  effect  that  the  federation  is  a  power 
in  politics,  that  it  is  consulted  by  politicians  who  wish  their  bills  en- 
dorsed, that  the  federation  is  helped  by  the  franchise  and  is  "  able  to  make 
its  demands  as  coming  from  a  powerful  body  of  voters." 

Among  the  many  excellent  laws  it  endorsed  and  worked  for  last  winter 
was  a  bill  "  making  it  a  felony  to  live  off  the  earnings  of  women  of 
the  town,"  and  a  bill  to  "  define  the  term  taxpayer  and  make  it  impos- 
sible to  create  them  off-hand  in  case  of  a  franchise  election." 

Much  more  might  be  said  of  the  activities  and  influence  of  the  Fed- 
eration, but  we  hope  that  even  this  meagre  sketch  has  helped  to  answer 
the  National  Municipal  League's  question  as  to  the  methods  used  by 
women  in  politics. 

CIRCULAR  AND  QUESTIONS   SENT  OUT  TO  EMINENT  PER- 
SONS IN  COLORADO. 

"  The  Pennsylvania  Limited  Suffrage  League  has  been  requested  by  the 
National  Municipal  League  to  send  in  a  series  of  reports  on  "  The  Prac- 
tical Workings  of  Woman  Suffrage  in  Municipalities,"  to  be  read  at  their 
next  annual  meeting.  The  National  Municipal  League  is  an  organization 
of  high  standing,  composed  of  prominent  men  and  women.  The  reports 
prepared  for  it  should  be  thorough  and  scholarly.  With  your  assistance. 


MISS  MARY  WINSOR  319 

we  hope  to  make  them  so.  In  order  to  obtain  reliable  information,  the 
Pennsylvania  Limited  Suffrage  League  has  compiled  the  following  ques- 
tions. We  would  be  greatly  indebted  to  you  if  you  would  reply  to  as 
many  of  these  questions  as  possible.  Do  not  hesitate  to  answer  very 
fully,  giving,  whenever  possible,  names  and  dates  and  specific,  detailed 
instances  drawn  from  your  experience  to  illustrate  the  advantages  or  dis- 
advantages of  woman  suffrage.  Thanking  you  in  advance  for  your 
courtesy,  I  remain,  Yours  sincerely, 

MARY  WINSOR, 
President  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Limited  Suffrage  League, 

Haverford  P.  O.,  Pa. 

1.  Has  woman  suffrage  improved  conditions  in  your  municipality? 

2.  Has  it  increased  or  lessened  corruption  in  the  city  government? 

3.  Does  it  cause  more,   or  less,   bribery  and  corruption  in   elections? 
Are  the  women  themselves  corrupted  by  their  participation  in  elections? 

4.  Are  better,  or  worse,  men  elected  to  office? 

5.  Does  woman  suffrage  make  it  more  difficult,  or  easier,  to  get  good 
legislation  passed? 

6.  Does  it  tend  toward  making  city  government  more,  or  less,  efficient? 

7.  Does  it  tend  toward  a  better  enforcement  of  the  laws? 

8.  Does  it  tend  toward  making  politics  more  partisan  or  less  so?     Is 
the  feminine  vote  more,  or  less,  dependent  on  party  affiliations  than  the 
masculine  vote? 

9.  Are  the  polling  booths  generally  located  in  places  fit  for  women  to 
enter?    Since  women  were  enfranchised,  has  the  location  and  character 
of  the  polling  booths  changed  for  the  better  or  worse?    Are  the  political 
conventions  and  the  polls  more,  or  less,  orderly? 

10.  What  reforms  have  been  brought  about  in  your  city  by  the  assist- 
ance of  the  feminine  vote  ? 

u.  Has  the  liquor  evil  been  diminished? 

12.  Has  the  social  evil  been  diminished? 

13.  Has  woman  suffrage  improved  the  juvenile  courts? 

14.  Has   it  improved  the   public  schools  or  educational   conditions  in 
cities  ? 

15.  Has  it  increased  the  number  of  public  playgrounds  and  parks? 

16.  Has  it  helped  in  beautifying  the  appearance  of  your  city  or  in  mak- 
ing it  cleaner  and  more  comfortable? 

17.  In  your  city  do  women  vote  in  considerable  numbers?    Of  the  total 
number  of  women,  what  percentage  votes? 

18.  Do  immoral  women  generally  vote  and  is  their  vote  controlled  by 
the  police? 

19.  Are  there  many  women  office-holders?     Are  they  women  of  good 
standing?    Do  they  fill  their  position  satisfactorily? 


320 


PRACTICAL  WORKINGS  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


20.  Are  the  women  generally  public-spirited  and  ready  to  rally  to  the 
support  of  the  upright  and  honorable  men  of  progressive  views?    Do  they 
take  an  intelligent  interest  in  municipal  affairs? 

21.  Do  you  recommend  woman  suffrage  for  cities? 

The  first  municipality  on  our  list  is  Colorado  Springs.  Opinion 
on  woman  suffrage  is  divided.  Of  fourteen  letters  received 
from  men  and  from  leading  club  women,  one  was  lukewarm,  five 
unfavorable  and  eight  favorable. 

Colorado  Springs  is  a  health  resort  and,  according  to  a  promi- 
nent civic  worker  there,  "  the  municipal  conscience  is  not  highly 
developed,  either  in  men  or  women,"  and  the 
to  ora  o  bprings  pOpUiatjon  contains  a  transient  and  pleasure- 
seeking  element  difficult  to  interest  in  good  government.  In  spite 
of  these  disadvantages,  Colorado  Springs  has  managed  to  secure 
an  improved  form  of  municipal  government.  It  has  adopted  a 
charter  which  "  attempts  to  combine  the  best  elements  of  the  so- 
called  Galveston  and  Des  Moines  plans,"  and  is  somewhat  like 
the  charter  government  of  Grand  Junction. 

The  question  now  arises,  "  did  the  women  oppose  these  re- 
forms or  did  they  help  to  obtain  them?"  None  of  the  unfavor- 
able letters  were  explicit  or  definite  with  regard  to  this  question, 
but  three  of  the  favorable  letters  answered  strongly  in  the  affir- 
mative and  the  Chairman  of  the  Civil  Service  Committee  of  the 
Colorado  Federation  of  Woman's  Clubs,  Mrs.  Robert  Kerr, 
whose  home  is  in  Colorado  Springs,  said,  "  I  believe  we  should 
not  now  have  the  referendum,  recall,  non-partisan  ballot  and 
strong  civil  service  regulations  had  it  not  been  for  the  work  of 
the  women."  Mrs.  Kerr  then  gave  a  detailed  account  of  reforms 
obtained  through  the  influence  of  women.  Among  them  may 
be  mentioned  the  following:  "In  Colorado  City,  before  women 
had  the  ballot,  it  was  the  usual  thing  to  have  a  saloon  keeper  or 
two  on  the  city  council  and  the  office  of  mayor  has  even  been  oc- 
cupied by  a  saloon  man.  Since  women  came  into  their  political 
rights  fifteen  years  ago  no  such  thing  has  been  known.  This  may 
be  said  of  many  other  municipalities  in  the  state.  The  good  effect 
(of  woman  suffrage)  is  not  so  noticeable  when  it  comes  to  the 
general  state  elections,  largely  because  it  is  difficult  for  women  to 
become  sufficiently  informed  as  to  the  characters  of  men  whom 


MISS  MARY  WINSOR  321 

they  do  not  know,  but  in  their  home  towns,  where  they  are  close 
to  the  nominees  and  the  issues,  they  seldom  fail  to  stand  for  the 
best  men  and  the  best  measure." 

In  reply  to  the  question,  "  What  percentage  of  the  women 
vote?"  Mrs.  Kerr  said,  "over  80  per  cent  of  the  women  them- 
selves, and  of  the  total  vote  they  cast  between  40  and  50  per  cent 
in  the  state,  but  in  this  city,  in  the  Roosevelt  campaign,  they  polled 
52  per  cent  of  the  total  vote  cast. 

"  A  committee  was  appointed  from  the  Social  Science  Depart- 
ment of  the  Woman's  Club  of  Colorado  Springs  to  ascertain  the 
exact  per  cent  of  the  woman  vote  in  the  Taft  election.  A  woman 
was  placed  at  each  of  the  29  polling  places  for  that  specific  pur- 
pose. It  was  found  that  the  general  average  was  about  50  per 
cent,  running  up  in  some  precincts  to  nearly  53  per  cent,  notably 
in  the  ward  where  Colorado  College  is  located,  and  where,  if 
anywhere,  the  highest  standard  of  citizenship  is  maintained." 
Mrs.  Kerr  says  that  all  classes  necessarily  vote,  but  "  by  far  the 
greatest  percentage  comes  from  the  educated  and  working 
classes." 

This  testimony  might  be  off-set  by  a  letter  from  J.  Arthur  Con- 
nell,  President  of  the  Colorado  Title  and  Trust  Company,  to  the 
effect  that  decidedly  the  "  worse  class  "  of  women  voted.  "  Most 
of  the  women  of  my  acquaintance  dislike  going  to  the  polls  and 
only  do  so  at  the  urgent  request  of  husband,  father  or  other  male 
relatives."  Mr.  Connell  stated  that  no  reform  had  been  accom- 
plished in  his  city  by  help  of  woman  suffrage,  though  a  few  re- 
forms in  the  state. 

Mr.  R.  W.  Chisholm,  a  member  of  the  National  Municipal 
League,  wrote  us  a  brief  letter  to  the  effect  that  woman  suffrage 
had  made  good  government  in  his  state  more  difficult,  as  all  the 
worse  class  of  women  voted,  whereas  the  better  element  had  lost 
interest.  Much  to  our  disappointment,  Mr.  Chisholm  offered  us 
no  statistics  gathered  at  the  polls  to  show  that  the  vote  was 
heavier  in  disreputable  districts  than  in  respectable.  We  also 
received  three  letters  from  women,  saying  that  if  the  question  of 
woman  suffrage  were  to  be  voted  on  again,  they  thought  the 
women  themselves  would  be  against  it.  But  these  letters  gave  no 
statistics  of  any  kind  to  prove  their  statements,  merely  saying 
that  this  was  the  opinion  of  the  women  of  their  acquaintance. 


322 


PRACTICAL  WORKINGS  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


Throughout  this  investigation  nearly  all  the  anti-suffrage  tes- 
timony consisted  of  vague,  sweeping  statements  or  were  confined 
to  describing  individual  cases  of  corruption  among  women  with- 
out attempting  to  show  the  average  of  corruption,  whereas  the 
Suffragists  generally  backed  up  their  statements  by  facts,  names, 
dates  and  statistics.  We  have,  therefore,  given  here  more  testi- 
mony in  favor  of  suffrage  because  we  received  about  ten  times 
as  much  and  also  because  the  majority  of  answers  were  in  favor 
of  suffrage. 

The  majority  of  the  letters  sent  us  from  Colorado,  even  the 
unfavorable  ones,  contained  some  reference  to  the  election  of 
Ben.  B.  Lindsey  as  Juvenile  Court  Judge  in  November,  1908. 
Having  failed  of  renomination  by  either  party, 
he  was  supported  and  elected  by  the  women  in 
defiance  of  both  parties.  Judge  Lindsey  had  proved  himself  the 
fearless  defender  of  forlorn  and  neglected  childhood  and  had 
antagonized  powerful  interests  bent  on  exploiting  the  child.  I 
like  to  emphasize  the  importance  of  the  election  of  a  juvenile 
court  judge  because  it  is  possible  that  the  National  Municipal 
League  does  not  think  the  juvenile  court  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant problems  in  municipal  government.1  Neither  did  the  men 
of  Denver.  But  the  women  did,  and  in  rallying  to  the  side  of 
the  defender  of  childhood,  Colorado  women  were  obeying  their 
most  feminine  instincts.  Incidentally,  they  were  receiving  valu- 
able lessons  in  "  the  art  of  scratching  tickets,"  and  this  election 
proved  an  "  education  in  independent  voting."  One  of  the  dis- 
trict presidents  of  the  Colorado  State  Federation  of  Woman's 
Clubs  wrote  me  that  she  was  "  opposed  to  woman  suffrage  at 
first  and  greatly  disappointed  with  the  results  for  a  number  of 
years,  but  now  the  women  are  awakening  and  in  the  last  few 
years  have  made  themselves  felt.  They  always  voted,  but  it  was 
along  party  lines,  but  now  they  scratch  and  as  a  result  better  men 
and  a  few  women  are  run  for  office." 

Colorado  women  have  been  working  for  the  initiative  and  re- 
ferendum for  years.  The  first  meeting  held  to  discuss  the  sub- 

1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  National  Municipal  Leaguers  regard  this  office 
as  of  prime  importance. — EDITOR. 


MISS  MARY  WINSOR  323 

ject  was  arranged  by  the  suffrage  association  more  than  twenty 
years  ago  when  Mr.  Sullivan,  author  of  a  well-known  pamphlet 
on  the  initiative,  addressed  the  audience.  After  the  women  were 
enfranchised  in  1893,  the  suffrage  leagues  all  over  the  state  to 
the  number  of  152  petitioned  the  legislature,  asking  for  the  sub- 
mission of  this  amendment  to  the  voters.  The  W.  C.  T.  U.  has 
long  been  busy  educating  the  public  in  favor  of  this  reform. 

Last  spring,  Denver  had  a  municipal  house-cleaning,  in  which 
the  women  played  a  leading  part.  A  citizens'  party  was  organ- 
ized as  a  reform  party.  A  convention  was  held,  at  which  all  the 
speeches  were  made  by  women,  Mrs.  Sarah  Platt  Decker,  Mrs. 
Helen  Ring  Robinson  and  Mrs.  Martha  A.  B.  Conine  being 
among  the  orators.  Miss  Ellis  Meredith  was  nominated  for  the 
most  important  office  on  the  ticket,  that  of  election  commissioner. 
The  women  nominated  her  "  because  of  her  fine  character  and 
great  ability."  The  issues  to  be  submitted  to  the  people  at  the 
election  were  the  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall.  Also 
the  water  question.  With  regard  to  the  latter,  I  will  quote  from 
a  letter  sent  me  by  a  prominent  Denver  woman : 

"  The  franchise  of  the  water  company  having  expired,  they 
asked,  or  rather  demanded,  a  twenty-years  renewal  at  a  merely 
nominal  price.  The  rates  were  high  and  the  service  unsatis- 
factory." The  election  was  held  and  "  the  water  franchise  was 
beaten  by  so  large  a  majority  that  there  has  been  no  attempt  to 
count  it  out."  Miss  Meredith  was  elected.  Judge  Lindsey,  in 
La  Follette's  Weekly  for  June  2d,  says,  "  all  of  our  charter 
amendments  for  the  initiative,  referendum  and  recall  were  over- 
whelmingly carried  .  .  .  showing  the  greatest  intelligence  among 
the  voters  that  has  ever  been  shown  in  an  election  in  this  coun- 
try." In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Bassett,  of  Everett,  Washington,1  Judge 
Lindsey  says,  "  the  election  was  the  greatest  victory  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  state  for  the  reform  forces,  for  popular  government 
and  for  righteousness.  The  utility  corporations  that  have  cor- 
rupted our  politics  were  utterly  routed  and  the  two  political 
machines  were  defeated,  and  the  result  was  largely  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  great  majority  of  women  voted  for  the  reform  meas- 
ures and  against  the  "  gang  "  and  made  the  victory  possible." 

1  Woman's  Journal  of  Boston,  October  8. 


324 


PRACTICAL  WORKINGS  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


On  September   14,   1909,  by  vote  of  the  people — the  whole 
people,  not  merely  the  masculine  portion — Grand  Junction  estab- 
lished the  charter   form  of   government.     Ac- 
Grand  Junction     cording   to   the    -prefatory   synopsis"    of    the 

charter,  its  "  intent  and  purpose  is  to  establish  a  free  and  inde- 
pendent city  and  to  restore  to  and  vest  in  the  people  of  the  city, 
so  far  as  the  constitution  of  the  state  will  permit,  the  material, 
inherent  and  inalienable  right  of  local  self-government  with  all 
its  power,  duties  and  responsibilities.  To  that  end  under  and  by 
the  provisions  of  the  charter  "  the  municipal  government  is  vested 
independently  of  legislative  interference,  with  all  powers  not  de- 
nied it  by  the  constitution  of  the  state. 

The  people  of  the  city  are  vested  with  its  supreme  legislative 
powers,  with  easy  preliminary  conditions  in  making  and  changing 
its  charter  and  ordinances  and  also  with  the  absolute  and  exclu- 
sive power  of  authorizing,  regulating  or  terminating  its  public 
service  corporations  and  of  recalling  its  elective  officers. 

The  preferential  system  of  voting  has  been  established  in  lieu 
of  direct  primaries  or  of  second  elections,  thus  securing  a  unique' 
and  accurate  expression  of  the  public  will  at  the  polls  with  the 
minimum  of  cost  and  effort. 

Partisan  and  machine  politics  and  government  are  inhibited  and 
a  municipal  democracy  substituted  therefor. 

No  fixed  tenure  of  office  is  permitted  except,  subject  to  recall, 
of  elective  officers  and  as  authorized  by  a  classified  civil  service 
for  employees. 

The  city  wards  and  the  saloon  have  been  abolished. 

Opportunity  for  graft  and  favoritism  in  innumerable  directions 
have  been  eliminated.  Boards  have  been  established  to  care  for 
the  public  library,  parks,  charities  and  civil  service. 

The  city  has  been  divided  into  five  administrative  departments, 
viz.: 

I.  Public  affairs. 
II.  Finance  and  supplies. 

III.  Highways. 

IV.  Health  and  civic  beauty. 
V.  Water  and  sewers. 

The  commission  form  of  government  has  been  improved,  elect- 


MISS  MARY  WINSO'R  325 

ing  each  commissioner  directly  to  his  department  and  clearly  de- 
fining his  duties. 

Each  commissioner  is  required  to  take  the  active  charge  and 
management  of  his  department,  giving  his  whole  time  thereto, 
and  has  before  him  the  opportunity  and  incentive  of  becoming 
a  specialist  therein,  and  thus  of  establishing  a  most  efficient  ad- 
ministration. 

The  charter  provides  that  nominations  are  to  be  made  by  peti- 
tion, the  petition  to  consist  of  not  less  than  twenty-five  (25)  in- 
dividual certificates,  which  certify  that  the  person  nominated  is 
of  good  moral  character  and  especially  qualified  to  fill  the  office, 
and  is  not  the  nominee  or  representative  of,  or  has  been  promised 
support  from,  any  political  party.  No  recall  petition  shall  be  filed 
against  any  official  until  he  has  actually  held  his  office  for  three 
months.  Such  a  petition  must  be  signed  by  at  least  20  per  cent 
of  the  qualified  electors.  No  franchises  are  to  be  granted  except 
upon  the  vote  of  the  qualified  tax-paying  electors.  The  applicant 
for  such  a  franchise  must  pay  the  expenses  of  the  election.  All 
power  to  regulate  the  rates,  fares,  rentals  and  charges  for  service 
by  public  utility  corporations  is  reserved  to  the  people  to  be  ex- 
ercised by  them  by  ordinance  of  council  or  by  direct  vote  of  the 
people.  Any  right  of  regulation  shall  include  the  right  to  require 
uniform,  convenient  and  adequate  service  to  the  public.  All  fran- 
chises must  be  worded  in  plain  and  unambiguous  terms  and  every 
ambiguity  therein  shall  be  construed  in  favor  of  the  city  and 
against  the  claimant." 

This  charter  differed  from  the  charter  of  Colorado  Springs  in 
giving  the  mayor  no  veto  power  and  in  other  details.  A  brief 
study  of  this  charter  convinced  us  that  Grand  Junction  was 
abreast  of  and  possibly  ahead  of,  the  other  charter  cities.  It  re- 
mained to  be  ascertained  in  how  far  the  women  of  Grand  Junc- 
tion might  claim  credit  for  the  adoption  of  the  charter.  Had  they 
been  hostile,  indifferent  or  friendly?  In  seeking  answers  to  this 
question  we  did  not  waste  time  upon  the  general  public  of  Grand 
Junction,  but  wrote  to  experts;  namely,  the  five  recently-elected 
commissioners  and  the  twenty-one  men  who  had  been  members 
of  the  charter  convention. 

James  W.  Bucklin  was  the  president  of  the  convention  and  is 


326 

called  "  the  father  of  the  charter ".  Mr.  Bucklin  himself  was 
absent  from  Colorado  when  our  letter  arrived,  but  his  wife  an- 
swered our  queries  as  to  the  part  played  by  the  women  and  the 
women's  local  clubs.  Said  Mrs.  Bucklin:  "the  majority  of  the 
intellectual  women  were  in  favor  of  the  charter  and  understood  it 
and  voted  for  it ;  circulated  literature,  canvassed  and  talked  for  it. 

"  2d.  The  Woman's  Club  (a  local  organization)  does  not  take 
any  part  in  any  kind  of  political  campaigns  as  an  organization, 
but  a  large  part  of  the  members  voted  for  the  charter. 

"  3rd.  The  W.  C.  T.  U.  spoke  of  the  charter,  supported  it  as  an 
organization  and  aided  its  adoption  in  every  way  possible. 

"  4th.  The  majority  of  women,  especially  intellectual  women, 
worked  enthusiastically  for  the  charter  and  voted  for  it  and  were 
an  important  factor  in  bringing  about  its  adoption." 

The  secretary  of  the  convention,  James  Woods,  was  the  person 
next  in  importance  to  Mr.  Bucklin.  Mr.  Woods,  in  reply  to  our 
general  circular  and  special  questions,  said  that  he  had  been  in 
politics  in  Colorado  for  twenty-three  years,  that  woman  suffrage 
had  improved  conditions  in  his  municipality,  had  lessened  cor- 
ruption; that  bribery  still  existed  among  men,  very  little  among 
women,  that  better  men  were  nominated  and  only  the  best  elected ; 
that  temperance  and  morality  certainly  had  the  upper  hand,  that 
woman  suffrage  made  city  government  more  efficient  and  that 
the  laws  were  certainly  better  enforced;  that  women  frequently 
differed  from  their  husbands  in  political  matters;  that  polling 
places  (outside  of  Denver)  had  been  improved  until  they  were  as 
orderly  as  a  church ;  that  the  saloons  and  brothels  had  been 
driven  out  of  Grand  Junction;  that  as  great  a  percentage  of 
women  voted  as  men;  that  the  women  are  more  public-spirited 
and  intelligent  than  the  men ;  that  the  women  listen  less  to  bosses 
and  rings;  that  they  demand,  not  only  morals,  but  progressive 
measures. 

With  regard  to  the  charter  he  said :  "  Women  are  in  favor  of 
direct  legislation — 'Let  the  people  rule' — and  the  vast  majority 
of  women  favored  the  charter  and,  as  one  of  the  writers,  we 
made  it  strong  morally  to  have  women  support  it." 

Wendell  P.  Ela,  another  member  of  the  convention,  wrote: 
"  Woman  suffrage  was  largely  the  cause  of  an  entire  change  in 


MISS  MARY  WINSOR  327 

our  city  government  from  the  old  method  of  control  by  the  ward 
saloon  to  a  charter  government,  the  most  advanced,  perhaps,  in 
the  United  States." 

We  had  sent  out  twenty-six  letters  to  the  five  commissioners 
and  the  twenty-one  members  of  the  charter  convention.  We  re- 
ceived eight  replies,  of  which  six  were  favorable.  The  two  un- 
favorable ones  answered  our  questions  briefly  and  vaguely;  they 
were  not  explicit  and  gave  no  details  or  facts.  One  man  said 
that  woman  suffrage  had  made  it  even  more  difficult  to  obtain 
good  government  and  that  women  were  "  easily  swayed  ".  The 
other  said  he  was  opposed  to  the  principle  of  woman  suffrage 
and  thought  its  exercise  might  produce  evil  in  large  cities,  as 
women  might  become  corrupt.  The  charter  was  not  discussed 
in  either  letter. 


The  Present  Status  of  Direct  Nominations. 

By  LOUIS  M.  GREELEY,  CHICAGO, 
Member  of  Legislative  Voters'  League. 

The  popular  movement  in  favor  of  direct  nominations  con- 
tinues in  full  force.  Professor  Merriam,  in  his  book  on  Primary 
Elections  published  in  1908,  stated  x  that  fourteen  states,  to  wit, 
Illinois,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Missouri,  Ne- 
braska, North  Dakota,  Oklahoma,  Oregon,  South  Dakota,  Texas, 
Washington  and  Wisconsin  had  mandatory  direct  primary  elec- 
tion laws  covering  practically  all  offices;  that  three  other  states, 
Minnesota,  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  had  mandatory  direct  primary 
election  laws  covering  all  offices  but  state  offices,  and  that  four- 
teen other  states,  Alabama,  Delaware,  Florida,  Indiana,  Ken- 
tucky, Maine,  Maryland,  Massachusetts,  Michigan,  New  Jersey, 
New  York,  North  Carolina,  Rhode  Island  and  Tennessee,  had 
either  optional  direct  primary  election  laws 

Mandatory  Laws  coverinS  Poetically  all  offices,  or  else  op- 
tional  or  mandatory  direct  primary  election 
laws  covering  certain  offices  or  certain  localities.  Since  that 
book  was  published,  Arizona,2  California,3  Idaho,4  Nevada,* 
New  Hampshire  6  and  Tennessee  7  have  passed  mandatory  state- 
wide direct  primary  laws.  Michigan,8  which,  when  Prof.  Mer- 
riam wrote,  had  an  optional  direct  primary  law,  has  replaced  it  by 
a  mandatory  state-wide  direct  primary  law,  including  practically 
all  offices,  the  act  being,  however,  optional  as  to  county  offices 
and  as  to  city  offices  in  cities  having  under  70,000  population, 

1  Merriam,  Primary  Elections,  p.  88. 

2  Laws  of  Arizona,   1909,  p.  60. 

3  Laws  of  California,  1909,  Chap.  405. 

4  Laws  of  Idaho,  1909,  p.  196. 
'Laws  of  Nevada,  1909,  Chap.  198. 

8  Laws  of  New  Hampshire,  1909,  Chap.  153. 

7  Laws  of  Tennessee,  1909,  p.  281. 

8  Laws  of  Michigan,  1909,  p.  514,  sees,  i  and  12. 

(328) 


LOUIS  M.  GREELEY  329 

Illinois,  which  Prof.  Merriam  classed  among  the  states  having 
mandatory  state-wide  direct  primary  laws,  including  practically 
all  offices,  still  belongs  in  that  class  by  virtue  of  two  new  direct 
primary  laws,9  one  for  legislative  offices  only,  and  the  other  for 
practically  all  offices  except  legislative  offices,  these  acts  being 
passed  by  a  special  session  of  the  legislature  in  1910,  to  replace 
the  former  direct  primary  law  of  1908,  which  had  been  declared 
unconstitutional  by  the  State  Supreme  Court.10 

South  Dakota,  portions  of  whose  former  mandatory  direct 
primary  law  had  been  overthrown  by  the  State  Supreme  Court 
as  unconstitutional,11  has  replaced  her  former  statute  by  a  new 
full  mandatory  state-wide  direct  primary  law.12  So  that  at  the 
present  time  twenty-one  states  and  the  territory  of  Arizona  have 
upon  their  statute  books  direct  primary  laws  of  the  most  com- 
prehensive character. 

Some  states  having  direct  primary  laws  of  limited  application 
have  brought  new  territory  or  new  offices  within  the  operation 
of  the  direct  primary.18  In  no  state  where  the  direct  primary 
has  ever  gained  a  place  on  the  statute  book,  has  it  lost  ground. 
In  states  where  the  direct  primary  does  not  exist  or  exists  in 
limited  form,  determined  efforts  are  being  put  forth  to  intro- 
duce it  or  to  extend  its  scope  or  applicability.  A  striking  in- 
stance is  the  campaign  for  the  direct  primary  conducted  in  the 
State  of  New  York  by  Governor  Hughes,  which,  though  result- 
ing in  defeat  in  the  legislature,  may  yet  triumph  through  the 
advocacy  of  the  direct  primary  by  the  recent  Republican  con- 
vention of  that  State. 

The  Governor  of  Colorado,  in  his  recent  message  to  the 
special  session  of  the  legislature,  calls  upon  that  body  to  redeem 
its  pledges  to  the  people  by  enacting  a  direct  primary  law.  An 
active  movement  is  on  foot  in  Wyoming  for  a  direct  primary 
law. 

9  Laws  of  Illinois,  1910,  pp.  46,  77. 

10  People  v.   Strassheim,  240  111.  279. 

11  Morrow  v.  Wipf,  115  N.  W.  1121. 

12  Laws  of  South  Dakota,  1909,  p.  459. 

18  Laws  of  North  Carolina,  1909,  pp.  846,  908,  1133,  1251;  and  Laws 
of  Massachusetts,  1909,  Chap.  356. 


330 


THE  PRESENT  STATUS  OF  DIRECT  NOMINATIONS 


in  Nebraska,  North  Dakota  and  Washington  14  recent  legis- 
lation has  excluded  certain  judicial  offices  from  the  direct  primary 
and  substituted  therefor  a  non-partisan  nomina- 
ffices  tion.  The  Tennessee  Act  of  1909  excludes 
most  judicial  offices  from  its  operation.16  On  the  other  hand, 
the  direct  primary  laws  of  Arizona,  California,  Idaho  and  Ne- 
vada, all  passed  in  1909,  include  judicial  offices  in  party  primary 
elections.  Montana  16  has  provided  that  judges  must  be  nomi- 
nated by  petition. 

The  non-partisan  primary  or  double   election    for  municipal 

offices    has    gained    considerable   ground    since    Prof.    Merriam 

wrote.     Under  this  system  a  non-partisan  di- 

umcipa  unices  rect  prjmary  election  is  held.  At  the  ensuing 
final  election  all  candidates,  except  the  two  highest  for  each 
office,  are  excluded  from  the  ballot.  The  net  result  of  the  two 
elections  seems  to  be  the  election  of  officers  by  a  majority  rather 
than  a  plurality  vote.  The  system  was  first  introduced  by  act 
of  legislature  of  the  State  of  Iowa,  applying  to  cities  having  a 
commission  form  of  government.17  It  has  since  been  estab- 
lished for  commission-governed  cities  in  Illinois,18  Kansas  18  and 
Wisconsin.20  Wisconsin  has  also  a  local-option  law  for  non- 
partisan  direct  primaries  for  all  cities.21  The  non-partisan  direct 
primary  is  permitted  by  a  recent  amendment  to  the  Minnesota 
statute  for  home  rule  charters.22  It  has  been  provided  for  by 
charter  amendment  in  the  case  of  Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  a 
commission-governed  city.23  Berkeley,  California,  Grand  Rapids, 
Michigan,  and  doubtless  other  cities  have  also  adopted  it. 

14  Laws  of  Nebraska,  1909,  Chap.  53,  sees.  5  and  6. 
Laws  of  North  Dakota,  1909,  Chap.  82. 
Laws  of  Washington,  1909,  Chap.  82,  p.  179. 
18  Laws  of  Tennessee,  1909,  p.  281. 

16  Laws  of  Montana,  1909,  Chap.  113. 

17  Laws  of  Iowa,  1907,  Chap.  48. 

18  Laws  of  Illinois,  1910,  p.  12,  sees.  12-19. 
^Laws  of  Kansas,  1909,  p.  131,  Chap.  74. 
80  Laws  of  Wisconsin,  1909,  Chap.  448. 

21  Laws  of  Wisconsin,  1907,  Chap.  670. 

12  Laws  of  Minnesota,  1909,  Chap.  170,  p.  181. 

2»  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  1908,  Chap.  574,  p.  542. 


LOUIS  M.  GREELEY  331 

Several  of  the  more  recent  direct  primary  acts  exclude  some 
or  all  city  or  village  offices.  The  Idaho  act  does  not  apply  to 
cities,  villages  or  towns.24  The  Michigan  act  is  mandatory  as  to 
city  offices  in  cities  having  over  70,000  population,  and  is  optional 
as  to  such  offices  with  cities  of  smaller  size.25  The  Nebraska 
act  applies  only  to  cities  having  over  25,000  population  and  ex- 
cludes village  and  township  offices.26  The  New  Hampshire  act 
excludes  cities  and  towns. 

Most  or  all  direct  primary  acts  exclude  some  or  all  school 
offices  from  the  operation  of  the  act.27 

Of  the  direct  primary  laws  passed  within  the  last  two  years 
Arizona 28  requires  the  voter  on  challenge  to  make  affidavit  that 
he  is  affiliated  with  the  party,  and  has  not  signed 
a  nomination  petition  for  candidates  at  the 
primary,  of  other  political  parties,  or  a  nomina- 
tion paper  for  an  independent  candidate.  There  is  no  registration 
of  party  affiliation.  California  provides  for  registration  of  party 
affiliation,28  with  provisions  for  change  of  registered  affiliation.80 
The  Idaho  law  has  no  requirement  as  to  party  affiliation.  The 
voter  is  given  the  separate  primary  ballots  of  all  the  parties, 
pinned  together.  He  votes  one  ballot  only  and  returns  the  others 
to  the  judges  of  the  primary  who  deposit  them  in  a  box  provided 
for  the  purpose.31  The  Illinois  law  requires  the  voter,  on  chal- 
lenge, to  make  affidavit  that  he  has  not  voted  at  the  primary  of 
another  political  party  (other  than  a  party  local  to  a  city,  village 
or  town)  within  two  years,  that  he  has  not  signed  a  nomination 

14  Laws  of  Idaho,  1909,  p.  196,  sec. 

85  Laws  of  Michigan,  1909,  p.  514,  sec.  17. 

26  Laws  of  Nebraska,  1907,  Chap.  52,  sec. 

27  Laws  of  Arizona,  1909,  p.  60. 

Laws  of  California,  1909,  Chap.  405,  sec.  2. 
Laws  of  Illinois,  1910,  p.  46,  sec.  I. 
Laws  of  Kansas,  1908,  Chap.  54,  sec. 
Laws  of  Michigan,  1909,  p.  514. 
38  Laws  of  Arizona,  1909,  Chap.  24,  sec.  n. 
88  Laws  of  California,  1909,  Chap.  405,  sec.  17. 
•°  Political  Code  of  California,  sees.  1230,  I366a. 
81  Laws  of  Idaho,  1909,  p.  196,  sec.  15. 


332 


THE  PRESENT  STATUS  OF  DIRECT  NOMINATIONS 


petition  for  a  candidate  at  the  primary  of  other  political  parties, 
or  a  nomination  paper  for  an  independent  candidate,  and  that 
he  is  affiliated  with  the  party.32  There  is  no  express  provision  for 
registration  of  party  affiliation.  The  Michigan  law  provides  for 
a  registration  of  party  affiliation  (in  connection  with  registra- 
tion for  final  elections),  with  provision  for  change  of  registered 
affiliation.33  The  Nevada  law  makes  no  provision  for  registra- 
tion of  party  affiliation,  but  the  voter,  on  challenge,  must  make 
affidavit  that  he  intends  to  support  the  party  nominees.3*  The 
New  Hampshire  law  provides  for  registration  of  party  affiliation 
and  for  a  change  of  registered  party  affiliation  not  less  than 
ninety  days  prior  to  the  primary.35  The  Tennessee  statute  re- 
quires the  voter,  if  any  judge  of  the  primary  entertains  a  doubt 
as  to  his  party  affiliation,  to  make  affidavit  that  he  is  a  member 
of  and  belongs  to  the  party  (or  in  case  the  voter  desires  to  change 
his  party  affiliation)  that  he  now  intends,  in  good  faith,  to  affiliate 
with  and  become  a  member  of  the  party.89  Wisconsin,  which 
permits  the  voter  to  vote  the  ballot  of  any  political  party  without 
regard  to  his  party  affiliation,37  passed,  in  1909,  a  law  providing 
that  if  all  candidates  for  any  given  office  on  any  primary  ballot 
shall  receive  in  the  aggregate  less  than  twenty  per  cent  of  the  vote 
cast  for  the  party  nominee  for  governor  at  the  last  general  elec- 
tion, no  nominee  of  that  party  shall  be  placed  on  the  ballot  for  the 
final  election,  but  the  name  of  the  person  receiving  the  highest 
vote  shall  be  placed  on  that  ballot  as  an  independent  candidate.88 
The  object  of  this  law  was,  of  course,  to  keep  party  voters  from 
invading  the  primaries  of  other  political  parties.  The  provisions 
of  direct  primary  laws  passed  prior  to  1908  with  regard  to  party 
affiliation  of  voters  are  summarized  in  the  Wisconsin  Btillctin  on 
Party  Affiliations,  by  Miss  Margaret  A.  Schaeffer. 

82  Laws  of  Illinois,  1910,  p.  46,  sees.  43,  45. 

88  Laws  of  Michigan,  1909,  p.  514,  sees.  6  and  8. 

34  Laws  of  Nevada,  1909,  Chap.  198,  sec.  18. 

88  Laws  of  New  Hampshire,  Chap.  153,  sec.  10. 

88  Laws  of  Tennessee  of  1909,  p.  281,  sec.  22. 

87  Laws  of  Wisconsin,  1907,  Chap.  666,  sec.  n-u,  9  and  10. 

••  Laws  of  Wisconsin,  1909,  Chap.  477. 


LOUIS  M.  GREELEY  333 

There  has  been  a  strong  tendency  towards  limiting  by  law  the 
expenses  of  candidates  at  the  primary  election.     The  most  elab- 
orate law  of  the  kind  is  that  of  Oregon,  pat- 
Corrupt  terned  after  the  British  laws  of  1883  and  1895, 
Practices  Act  .          »  .     •  •*•  .•         TU 

adopted  in  1908  by  initiative.    The  act  provides 

for  the  publication  and  mailing  by  the  public  authorities  of  cam- 
paign statements  in  favor  of  and  against  the  primary  candidate 
and  his  opponents,  the  candidates  to  pay  certain  fees  toward  de- 
fraying the  cost.  The  act  limits  strictly  the  total  amount  that  may 
be  expended  on  behalf  of  candidates.  Candidates  and  political 
committees  and  agents  are  required  to  file  itemized  detailed  state- 
ments in  prescribed  form,  with  vouchers  of  campaign  receipts 
and  disbursements,  failure  to  file  which  prevents  the  candidate's 
name  from  being  placed  on  the  final  election  ballot.  Corporate 
campaign  contributions  are  prohibited.39  The  California  direct 
primary  law  has  corrupt  practices  provisions  defining  permis- 
sible campaign  expenses  and  prohibiting  all  others,  also  fixing 
the  total  permissible  maximum  total  amount  of  permissible  ex- 
penditures and  requiring  statements  to  be  filed.40 

The  Idaho  direct  primary  law  has  corrupt  practices  provisions 
defining  legitimate  campaign  expenses  and  requiring  the  filing  of 
a  detailed  statement  of  receipts  and  expenditures.41  Arkansas,43 
Connecticut,48  Florida 44  and  Georgia 45  have  also  recently 
passed  corrupt  practices  acts  applicable  to  primary  elections.  Sev- 
eral states  have  recently  passed  acts  prohibiting  campaign  sub- 
scriptions by  corporations.48  Congress  has  passed  such  a  law 
applicable  to  federal  corporations  and  to  congressional  elec- 

89  Laws  of  Oregon,  1908,  Chap.  3. 

40  Laws  of  California,  1909,  Chap.  405,  sees.  29-31. 

41  Laws  of  Idaho  of  1909,  Chap.  198,  sees.  24-26. 

42  Laws  of  Arkansas  of  1909,  p.  505. 
48  Laws  of  Connecticut  of  1909,  p.  183. 

44  Laws  of  Florida  of  1909,  p.  71. 

45  Laws  of  Georgia  of  1908,  p.  63. 
48  Laws  of  Georgia  of  1908,  p.  55. 

Laws  of  Massachusetts  of  1908,  Chap.  483. 
Laws  of  Mississippi  of  1908,  Chap.  124. 
Laws  of  Ohio  of  1908,  p.  23. 


334 


THE  PRESENT  STATUS  OF  DIRECT  NOMINATIONS 


tions.47  Iowa,  Massachusetts,  Missouri,  Nebraska,  New  York, 
Oklahoma,  and  many  other  states  have  on  their  statute  books 
corrupt  practices  acts  applicable  to  primary  elections.48 

The  decisions  down  to  1909  are  summarized  by  Prof.  Mer- 
riam.49  They  unanimously  sustain  the  general  power  of  the  legis- 
lature to  enact  primary  laws.  The  cases  disagree 
.sions  UpOn  tjie  question  whether  a  primary  election  is 
an  election  in  the  strict  constitutional  sense,  or  whether  it  is  a 
method  of  selecting  party  nominees  rather  than  an  election 
properly  so  called. 

The  greater  number  of  cases  and  the  better  reason  support 
the  latter  view.60  The  more  recent  cases  generally  adopt  this 
view.61 

Since  Professor  Merriam  wrote,  the  direct  primary  laws  of 
the  following  states  have  been  upheld  by  the  courts:  South  Da- 
kota62 (except  certain  provisions),  Oregon,53  Ohio,64  North 
Dakota,66  Wisconsin,66  Nevada57  and  Idaho.68 

The  direct  primary  laws  of  Illinois  and  Tennessee  have  been 
overthrown  by  the  courts.59  Primary  legislation  has  been  particu- 
larly unfortunate  in  Illinois.  The  courts  have  overthrown  no 
fewer  than  three  successive  primary  acts,  and  it  is  not  certain 

47  35  Stat.  at  L.,  1103. 

Laws  of  Oregon  of  1908,  Chap.  3,  sec.  25. 

48  Laws  of  Iowa  of  1907,  Chap.  50,  sees.  2-7. 
Laws  of  Massachusetts,  sees.  314-334. 

49  Merriam,  Primary  Elections,  Chap.  VI. 

60  Lone  v.  Board  Election  Commrs.,  154  Mich.  329. 
Morrow  v.  Wipf,  S.  Dakota,  115  N.  W.  1121. 
•Montgomery  v.  Chelf  (Ky.),  82  S.  W.  388. 

61  Ledgerwood  v.  Pitts  (Tenn.),  125  S.  W.  1036. 
State  v.  Frear  (Wise.),  125  N.  W.  961. 

Riter  v.  Douglas  (Nev.),  109  Pac.  444. 

Contra  see:  People  v.  Strassheim,  240  111.  279. 

52  Morrow  v.  Wipf,  115  N.  W.  1121. 

63  Ladd  v.  Holmes,  66  Pac.  721.  "  State  v.  Felton,  84  N.  E.  84. 

66  State  v.  Blaisdell,  118  N.  W.  141.     50  State  v.  Frear,  125  N.  W.  961 

87  Riter  v.  Douglas,  109  Pac.  444.  °8  Adams  v.  Lansdon,  no  Pac.  280. 

69  People  v.  Strassheim,  240  111.  279. 

Ledgerwood  v.  Pitts,  125  S.  W.  1036. 


LOUIS  M.  GREELEY  335 

that  the  present  (the  fourth)  act  will  not  meet  a  like  fate,  though 
a  recent  decision  (without  opinion)  of  the  State  Supreme  Court 
gives  some  ground  for  hope  that  the  present  law  (or  laws — for 
there  are  two)  will  be  sustained. 

The  general  result  of  recent  experience  with  the  actual  work- 
ing of  the  direct  primary  seems  to  show  that  where  the  voters 
are  alert  and  interested,  the  direct  primary  will 
accomplish  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  in- 
tended— the  democratization  of  nominations,  the  wresting  of 
control  of  party  nominations  from  the  party  boss  or  machine. 
The  results  of  the  recent  primaries  in  New  Hampshire,  Cali- 
fornia, Kansas  and  Minnesota  seem  to  show  this.  In  all  of  those 
states  the  popular  will  of  the  party  voters  prevailed  in  spite  of 
the  efforts  of  the  office-holding  machine.  No  doubt  the  sharp 
issue  between  the  stand-pat  and  insurgent  elements  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  drew  out  an  exceptionally  large  vote  at  the  Republican 
primaries. 

In  California  the  vote  for  governor  at  the  Republican  primary 
(the  only  primary  where  there  was  a  contest  as  to  that  office) 
the  total  vote  exceeded  that  cast  for  President  in  1908,  and  the 
total  vote  for  governor  at  all  the  primaries  was  only  40,000  less 
than  the  total  vote  at  the  state  election  in  1906.  The  normal 
primary  vote  seems  to  be  about  fifty  per  cent  of  the  normal  vote 
at  general  elections  in  Kansas.  The  percentages  in  Nebraska, 
Wisconsin  and  Michigan  are  a  little  lower.  In  Minnesota  the 
percentage  varies  between  25  per  cent  and  60  per  cent. 

As  to  the  expenses  of  primary  candidates,  while  exact  figures 
seem  not  to  be  available,  it  is  clear  that  they  are  heavy  where 
there  is  a  contest.  Whether  they  are  heavier  than  under  the  con- 
vention system  can  not  be  absolutely  determined. 
There  seems  little  reason  to  doubt  that  the  legiti- 
mate expenses  of  candidacy  are,  in  general, 
heavier  under  the  direct  primary  system  than  under  the  conven- 
tion system,  especially  in  the  case  of  offices  filled  by  the  vote 
of  an  entire  state  or  other  large  constituency.  This  is  no  doubt 
an  objection  to  the  direct  primary  system.  As  I  have  shown, 
efforts  are  being  put  forth  to  meet  it  by  corrupt  practices  acts 
defining  the  legitimate  expenses  of  candidates,  limiting  the  total 


336       THE  PRESENT  STATUS  OF  DIRECT  NOMINATIONS 

amount  that  may  be  expended,  and  requiring  the  filing  of  itemized 
statements  by  candidates  and  political  parties.  But  while  corrupt 
practices  acts  may  lessen,  they  cannot  wholly  remove  the  diffi- 
culty. For  the  legitimate  expense  of  canvassing  a  large  con- 
stituency is  necessarily  considerable,  and  a  corrupt  practices  act 
limiting  expenses  below  the  necessary  cost  of  a  thorough  can- 
vass would  seem  to  be  unreasonable  and  undesirable.  Some- 
times, no  doubt,  the  main  contest  is  at  the  primary  and  little 
further  in  the  way  of  canvass  for  the  general  election  is  neces- 
sary. But  in  general  the  primary  must  necessarily  involve  the  ex- 
pense to  the  public  of  an  extra  election  and  to  the  candidate  the 
expense  of  an  extra  canvass. 

The  Oregon  Corrupt  Practices  Act  provides  for  the  publica- 
tion and  mailing  to  the  voter  by  the  state  or  city  of  a  pamphlet 
containing  campaign  arguments  for  and  against  the  candidates 
furnished  by  the  candidates  and  by  their  opponents.  For  this 
the  candidates  pay  a  certain  price  per  page.  The  amount  so 
paid  is  not  sufficient  to  defray  the  entire  cost,  so  that  a  large  part 
of  the  expense  of  the  canvass  is  in  effect  thrown  on  the  public. 

If  the  direct  primary  necessarily  involves  added  expense  to 
public  and  candidates,  it  at  any  rate  gives  the  candidate  an  op- 
portunity to  discuss  and  place  before  the  voters  real,  vital  issues. 
The  added  expense  goes  toward  the  enlightenment  of  the  voter. 

It  seems  not  possible  to  determine  accurately  whether  or  not 
voters  of  other  parties  vote  to  any  considerable  extent  at  the 
primaries  of  parties  to  which  they  do  not  belong.  The  impression 
prevails  that  this  is  done  to  a  very  considerable  extent.  The 
laws  of  the  various  states  vary  very  much  as  to  requirements 
and  tests  with  respect  to  party  affiliation.  Some  states  like  Mich- 
igan and  California  have  so-called  close  primaries,  where  by  law 
the  party  affiliation  of  the  voter  is  entered  upon  the  register  of 
voters,  with  provision  for  change  of  party  affiliations  upon  the 
register  at  stated  times.  Every  voter  must,  in  general,  be  regis- 
tered with  the  party  at  the  primary  of  which  he  seeks  to  vote. 
The  Illinois  law  provides  that  a  voter  having  voted  at  a  party 
primary,  cannot  vote  at  the  primary  of  any  other  party  for  two 
years.  On  the  other  hand,  by  the  laws  of  some  states  the  party 
affiliation  of  the  voter  is  not  registered,  and  the  voter  is  simply 


LOUIS  M.  GREELEY  337 

required,  in  case  of  challenge,  to  make  affidavit  as  to  his  having 
affiliated  in  the  past  with  the  party,  or  of  his  intention  to  sup- 
port a  majority  of  the  party  candidates  at  the  final  election.  The 
laws  of  Idaho  and  Wisconsin  permit  the  voter  to  select  which- 
ever party  primary  he  chooses,  regardless  of  his  party  affiliation. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  Idaho  and  Wisconsin 

Affii"5^'  ^  ^  'aws  are  wronS  m  principle,  that  the  right  to 
vote  at  the  primary  election  should  be  by  law 
strictly  limited  to  adherents  of  the  party,  so  far  as  this  is  prac- 
ticable. The  primary  election  is  intended  as  a  means  of  selecting 
party  candidates.  For  that  reason  only  those  belonging  to  the 
party  should  participate.  If  outsiders  are  allowed  to  participate 
at  the  party  primary  elections,  the  primary  elections  lose  all 
reason  for  being.  If  they  are  not  expressions  of  the  will  of  the 
party  voters  in  the  choice  of  candidates,  they  are  nothing.  I 
believe  that  tests  of  party  affiliations  should  be  made  as  rigid  as 
practicable  and  inasmuch  as  they  must  necessarily  be  somewhat 
vague,  I  believe  that  a  declaration  of  party  affiliation  once  made 
should  confine  the  voter  to  the  primaries  of  that  party  for  a  con- 
siderable period. 

Experience  seems  to  show  that  the  party  convention  system  of 
nominations,  except  in  small  communities,  has  broken  down  in 
practice.  It  has  everywhere  come  under  the  control  of  party 
machine.  It  has  become  merely  a  means  of  registering  the  will 
of  the  party  bosses.  It  has  ceased  to  be  democratic  in  any  sense. 
Efforts  to  improve  matters  by  statutory  regulation  of  the  con- 
duct of  the  election  of  delegates  and  of  the  convention  itself 
have  proved  unsuccessful.  It  would  seem  that  we  must  sub- 
stitute some  other  system  of  nominations  in  place  of  the  con- 
vention system,  if  we  are  to  have  a  democratic  form  of  govern- 
ment in  fact  as  well  as  in  name. 

Of  the  substitutes  now  in  sight  it  would  seem  that  for  general 

use  the  partisan   direct  primary  is  the  most  promising.     The 

other    substitutes    are   the   non-partisan    direct 

Substitutes  for       primary  above  referred  to,  which  is  in  use  in 

onven  ion  j-jes    Moines    and    other    commission-governed 

cities.     This  system  no  doubt  works  well  for 

small  cities  under  commission  form  of  government.    It  is  ques- 


338       THE  PRESENT  STATUS  OF  DIRECT  NOMINATIONS 

tionable,  however,  whether  it  would  prove  satisfactory  for  cities 
of  metropolitan  size,  where  the  city  constituencies  are  large  and 
the  number  of  offices  to  be  filled  by  election  large.  It  would 
seem  that  some  form  of  partisan  primary  would  prove  prefer- 
able. This  system  of  nominations  has  never,  so  far  as  I  know, 
been  proposed  for  state  or  congressional  offices.  Boston  is  ex- 
perimenting with  the  non-partisan  nomination  by  petition.  It  is 
understood  the  actual  result  of  the  first  election  was  not  en- 
tirely satisfactory  to  those  who  proposed  the  plan.  This  does 
not  prove  that  the  plan  is  not  a  good  one.  The  experiment  is  a 
most  important  and  interesting  one,  and  will  be  closely  watched. 
The  experiment  is  favored  by  the  comparatively  small  num- 
ber of  offices  to  be  filled  by  election.  This  system  has  the  ad- 
vantage over  the  partisan  direct  primary  of  obviating  the  neces- 
sity of  a  nominating  election.  It  has  the  advantage  (in  common 
with  the  non-partisan  direct  primary)  of  tending  to  exclude 
from  municipal  elections  questions  of  national  party  politics. 
Whether  it  will  prove  popular  for  large  cities  with  numerous 
elective  offices  is  perhaps  doubtful.  That  the  system  would  ever 
be  extended  to  state  or  congressional  elections,  seems  most  un- 
likely. 

Whatever  may  be  the  respective  merits  of  non-partisan  nomi- 
nations and  the  direct  party  primary  so  far  as  municipal  nomina- 
tions are  concerned,  it  seems  to  me  reasonably  clear  that  the 
partisan  direct  primary  is  the  system  that  has  the  balance  of  ad- 
vantages in  its  favor  so  far  as  state  offices  and  members  of  Con- 
gress are  concerned.  In  these  matters  our  practice  of  party  nomi- 
nations and  party  designations  upon  the  ballot  is  too  firmly  fixed 
to  be  uprooted  without  causing  dissatisfaction  and  confusion.  So 
long  as  elective  offices  are  so  numerous  and  voting  constitu- 
encies so  large,  the  party  nominations  and  the  party  designations 
on  the  ballot  seem  necessary,  or  at  least  desirable. 

No  doubt  the  success  of  the  partisan  direct  primary  depends  on 
the  extent  to  which  the  party  voters  perform  their  duty  of  going 
to  the  polls  and  voting.  But  this  is  true  of  any  system  of  nomi- 
nations. It  will  not  alone  put  an  end  to  machine  politics,  so 
long  as  the  multitude  of  minor  elective  offices  and  the  lack  of 
adequate,  or  of  adequately  enforced,  civil  service  laws,  corrupt 


LOUIS  M.  GREELEY  339 

practices  laws  and  laws  for  the  punishment  of  bribery  and  cor- 
ruption of  voters  and  public  officials  make  machine  politics  pro- 
fitable and  safe.  No  doubt  if  the  voters  are  to  exercise  the  dis- 
criminating choice  which  the  act  of  voting  should  imply,  the 
number  of  elective  offices  must  be  greatly  de- 
creased. It  is  practically  impossible  for  the 
voter  to  ascertain  for  himself  the  qualifications  and  respective 
merits  of  the  large  number  of  persons  whose  names  appear  on 
our  election  ballots.  Real  choice  becomes  impossible.  The 
average  voter  must  and  does  rely  largely  on  the  party  name. 
This  is  an  evil  which  the  direct  primary  cannot  cure.  It  is 
perhaps  the  fundamental  evil  of  our  electoral  system.  It  is 
said  to  have  given  rise  (together  with  the  practice  of  rotation 
in  office)  to  our  entire  nominating  problem.  So  the  lack  of  ade- 
quate civil  service  reform  laws  or  the  adequate  enforcement  of 
them  has  left  the  jobs  as  spoils  in  the  hands  of  those  who  con- 
trolled the  elections.  Corruption  in  politics  and  in  office  has  been 
safe  and  enormously  profitable  because  of  the  insufficiency  of 
our  criminal  laws  and  the  lax  enforcement  of  them.  Our  politics 
will  not  cease  to  be  venial  and  corrupt  until  thorough-going 
reform  is  accomplished  in  all  of  these  directions.  It  is  the  op- 
portunity for  spoils  and  corruption  money  that  gives  rise  to  the 
political  machine,  and  it  will  continue  to  exist  as  long  as  that 
opportunity  exists. 

But  admitting  all  this — admitting  that  the  direct  primary  will 
go  only  a  short  way  towards  the  reform  necessary  to  purify  our 
electoral  system,  admitting  that  the  short  ballot,  the  civil  service 
reform,  corrupt  practices  laws,  and  the  overhauling  of  our  crimi- 
nal laws  and  procedure  are  reforms  even  more  fundamental  and 
important,  it  still  remains  true,  as  it  seems  to  me,  that  direct 
primary  is  the  initial  reform,  the  logical  first  step  in  the  path  of 
reform.  For  to  accomplish  any  of  these  other  reforms  we  must 
first  elect  to  our  congress,  and  our  legislatures,  men  free  from 
boss  control.  The  democratization  of  nominations  is  the  only 
or  the  speediest  way  to  accomplish  this  result.  Furthermore,  of 
all  nominating  systems  proposed  as  substitutes  for  the  convention 
system,  the  partisan  direct  primary,  cumbersome  as  it  is,  ex- 
pensive as  it  is,  seems  on  the  whole  the  most  promising  for 
political  offices. 


The  Principle  of  Wieldy  Districts. 

By  RICHARD  S.  CHILDS,  NEW   YORK, 

Secretary  Short  Ballot  Association. 

A  great  weakness  in  our  American  attempt  at  democracy  is 
the  fact  that  it  requires  permanent  organized  political  machines 
to  make  it  work.  (I  don't  mean  parties.)  To  beat  one  machine 
we  must  create  another.  Without  political  machines  our  politics 
would  be  chaos. 

One  function  of  the  machines  is  to  make  nominations  for 
minor  offices  in  which  the  people  have  no  natural  interest. 
Proper  selection  of  the  offices  we  put  on  the  elective  list  will 
exclude  all  which  are  naturally  obscure  and  in  which  the  people 
take  no  interest,  thus  disposing  of  this  need  for  machine  rule. 

A  second  function  is  to  provide  the  voter  with  ready-made 
tickets  for  convenience  in  voting  when  the  number  of  elective 
offices  is  larger  than  the  average  voter  cares  to  remember. 
Shortening  the  ballot  by  reducing  the  number  of  elective  offices 
disposes  of  the  ticket-making  function  of  the  machines. 

There  sometimes  remains  a  third  function  for  political  ma- 
chines even  on  this  Short  Ballot  basis — namely,  to  conduct  the 
large  scale  campaigns  necessary   in  large  dis- 
tricts.   How  to  dispose   of  this  work  so  that  we 
can  do  without  political  machines  is  the  problem. 

A  large  district  containing,  say,  100,000  voters  is  a  very  difficult 
battle-ground.  There  the  independent  contestant  who  aspires  to 
office  faces  a  task  that  is  too  big  for  one  man  or  an  impromptu 
organization. 

In  January,  1910,  Boston  put  into  effect  a  new  charter  provid- 
ing for  a  mayor  elected  for  four  years,  a  council  of  nine  members 
elected  for  three-year  terms,  three  at  a  time  in  rotation,  and  a 
school  board  of  five  members  elected  one  or  two  at  a  time  for 
three-year  terms.  All  are  elected  at  large.  All  nominations  are 
by  petition.  The  ballot  is  non-partisan. 

(340) 


RICHARD  S.  CHILDS  341 

In  the  first  election  there  were  four  candidates  for  mayor  who 
survived  the  rather  heavy  petition  requirements,  namely,  Fitz- 
gerald, a  Democratic  ex-mayor  under  whose  former  adminis- 
tration there  had  been  much  complaint  of  misgovernment ;  Hib- 
bard,  a  Republican  ex-mayor;  Storrow,  the  nominee  of  a  com- 
mittee of  reformers  representing  the  independent  good-govern- 
ment vote,  and  Taylor,  apparently  representing  no  one  but  him- 
self and  his  prospective  constituents.  Taylor  was  out  of  the 
race  from  the  start.  It  was  recognized  that  his  support  was  only 
personal,  that  he  had  no  machine  at  his  disposal  to  carry  his 
message  to  the  voters  and  that  there  was  no  long-standing,  well- 
established  "  good-will  "  in  his  favor.  He  got  613  votes  on  elec- 
tion day.  The  other  candidates  all  valued  the  support  of  the  old 
machines  and  manoeuvered  for  it.  The  stock  of  the  candidates 
rose  and  fell  according  to  the  rumors  of  their  success  in  their 
flirtations.  Fitzgerald  had  the  whole-hearted  though  informal 
support  of  the  Democratic  machine  which  he  had  richly  be- 
friended in  patronage  and  favoritism  when  in  office  before.  He 
was  elected  with  47,000  votes. 

Hibbard  ceased  to  be  a  factor  in  the  contest  when  it  became 
clear  that  he  would  not  have  the  support  of  the  Republican  ma- 
chine. Only  i, 800  votes  were  cast  for  him. 

Storrow  spent  a  huge  fortune  on  his  campaign  and  supported 
by  the  organized  reformers  gathered  almost  the  entire  anti- 
Fitzgerald  vote  (45,000). 

In  the  future  the  political  organizations  of  long  standing, 
namely,  the  Democratic  machine,  the  Republican  machine  (which 
will  not  always  continue  to  keep  aloof)  and  the  Municipal  League 
with  its  coterie  of  civic  workers  and  reformers  will  hold  a 
monopoly  of  the  hopeful  nominations.  A  candidate  must  always 
have  the  support  of  at  least  one  of  them  in  order  to  win.  If  he. 
can  secure  the  support  of  two  of  them  he  will  be  almost  in- 
vincible. To  build  up  de  novo  an  impromptu  volunteer  organiza- 
tion capable  of  winning  the  election  against  the  old-established 
organizations  is  hardly  a  hopeful  undertaking. 

To  believe  that  in  the  future  the  people  of  Boston  will  not  be 
sharing  their  control  over  the  mayor  with  some  coterie  of  per- 
manently-organized political  specialists  is  to  assume  either  that 


342 

the  politicians  will  refuse  to  sell  their  support  to  any  bidders  or 
that  no  candidates  will  bid  for  such  support  even  if  getting  it 
will  contribute  greatly  to  success. 

All  this  is  only  saying  that  large  electorates  are  hard  of  hear- 
ing and  that  they  can  be  so  large  as  to  be  almost  deaf. 

To  express  it  in  another  way,  an  electorate  may  be  so  large 
that  it  cannot  do  even  a  simple  task  without  organizing  for  it, 
and  in  huge  electorates  it  will  have  to  be  a  more 
elaborate  and  costly  organization  than  we  can 
ask  the  candidates  to  improvise  privately  for  a  single  campaign. 
And  if  the  support  of  these  standing  armies  is  highly  valuable 
to  the  candidates,  it  follows  logically  that  these  armies  (or  the 
captains  of  them)  will  hold  an  unassailable  monopoly  of  the 
hopeful  nominations.  Democracy  requires  that  there  shall  be 
reasonably  free  competition  for  elective  offices.  To  give  to  any 
one  set  of  men  power  to  exclude  various  candidates  from  the 
contest  may  often  result  in  barring  out  the  very  men  the  people 
would  like.  It  is  not  possible  to  suppress  permanent  political 
organizations  when  they  will  be  of  great  help  in  winning  the 
great  prizes  of  office,  but  it  is  possible  to  so  arrange  the  battle- 
ground that  there  will  not  be  enough  advantage  in  permanent 
political  organizations  to  encourage  their  existence. 

The  smaller  the  district  and  the  fewer  the  voters  to  be  reached 
by  the  candidate,  the  weaker  is  the  grip  of  the  machine,  the 
easier  it  is  for  the  political  novice  to  succeed  and  the  less  is  the 
advantage  of  the  political  specialist.  (The  reason  that  it  rarely 
seems  to  work  that  way  is  because  in  small  districts  at  present 
the  offices  are  usually  too  petty  to  interest  the  people.) 

Accordingly  we  establish  a  Limitation  of  Democracy — The 
District  must  be  Wicldy. 

Let  the  political  unit  or  district  be  not  so  large  but  that  an  im- 
promptu organization  adequate  to  conduct  an  effective  cam- 
paign can  be  put  together  at  short  notice  by  an  average  candidate. 
Permanent  committees  or  political  organizations  cannot  then  do 
as  they  please  and  win,  since  the  risk  of  exciting  effective  oppo- 
sition, if  their  nominations  are  unsatisfactory,  will  be  truly 
serious. 

The  exact  maximum  for  the  voting  population  for  a  "wieldy" 


RICHARD  S.  CHILDS  343 

district  can  only  be  determined  by  the  test  of  practice.  Regard- 
ing any  existing  districts  the  formula  to  apply 
is— For  a  "  visible  "  office  do  the  people  in  this 
district  find  that  their  choice  is  unduly  limited  by  the  difficulty 
which  candidates  who  lack  the  support  of  standing  political  or- 
ganizations have  in  getting  a  hearing? 

Or  to  express  the  same  idea  differently — Can  a  spontaneous 
movement  of  public  opinion  in  such  district  express  itself 
promptly  without  getting  permission  from  the  old  political  ma- 
chines ? 

Or,  again,  can  a  candidate  of  ordinary  means  and  influence  get 
elected  in  such  district  with  only  the  help  of  an  impromptu  per- 
sonal organization? 

As  further  evidence,  the  following  instances  are  offered  of  the 
abolition  of  machine  control  in  districts  which  conform  to  the 
foregoing  considerations : 

CHICAGO  COUNCIL  :  The  aldermen  are  powerful  and  the  alder- 
manic  contests  are  well  illuminated  by  the  Municipal  Voters' 
League,  so  that  the  people,  despite  the  long 

Chicago  ballots,  take  an  interest  in  the  office. 
Wieldy  Districts 

The  wards  are  small  and  independent  candi- 
dates with  no  machine  to  help  them  except  such  organizations 
as  they  can  improvise,  have  frequently  been  elected.  The  dan- 
ger of  successful  candidacies  is  a  highly  effective  check  on  the 
power  of  the  machines.  The  Chicago  Council  is  in  consequence 
one  of  the  best  in  the  country  and  its  reform  seems  to  be  not 
spasmodic  but  permanent. 

THE  COMMISSION  PLAN:  As  so  far  tested,  the  commission 
plan  of  city  government  by  a  single  board  of  five  men  elected  at 
large  is  a  success  inasmuch  as  good  men  are  elected  and  are 
repeatedly  re-elected,  without  the  help  of  political  machines.  All 
the  commission-governed  cities  are  of  less  than  100,000  popu- 
lation, constituting  a  wieldy  district.  The  plan  would  fail  to 
eliminate  machine  control  if  tried  in  too  large  a  city.  If  tried  in 
Buffalo,  for  example,  the  attitude  of  various  leagues  and  political 
machines  would  have  an  important  bearing  on  the  contest  and  it 
would  be  impossible  to  keep  the  candidates  from  flirting  with 
permanent  organizations  continually.  No  independent  could 


344 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  WIELDY  DISTRICTS 


hope  for  success.  Organized  assistance  of  some  sort  would 
be  so  valuable  that  it  is  safe  to  say  that  practically  every  officer 
who  would  get  elected  would  owe  his  election  in  large  part 
to  expert  permanently-organized  help.  It  might  be  a  purely 
personal  permanent  machine,  but  if  the  candidates  did  not  run 
again  that  personal  machine  would  be  in  existence  ready  to  per- 
form a  like  service  for  the  highest  bidder. 

To  propose  that  Buffalo  adopt  a  commission  plan,  with  the 
variation  of  having  the  commissioners  elected  from  wards,  would 
cause  outcry  at  first  from  those  who  know  ward  politics  in  Buf- 
falo at  present.  The  weakness  of  present  ward  systems,  how- 
ever, lies  primarily  in  the  fact  that  candidates  elected  from  wards 
have  but  trifling  powers  and  their  election  is  not  sufficiently  im- 
portant to  make  it  a  matter  of  moment  to  the  people  in  that  ward. 
The  fact  that  wards  generally  produce  "  ward-sized  "  men  is  not 
due  to  the  littleness  of  the  ward,  but  to  the  littleness  of  the  job. 
Give  to  a  ward-elected  city  council  complete  control  of  the  city  as 
in  English  cities,  and  the  position  of  the  councilmen  (or  alder- 
men) immediately  attracts  first-class  talent,  rises  high  in  import- 
ance, and  is  protected  against  contamination  by  correspondingly 
intense  and  thorough  public  scrutiny. 

BOROUGH  OF  RICHMOND:  New  York  City  is  an  unwieldy  district 
(witness  the  gigantic  scale  of  Hearst's  vain  operations)  and  so 
are  also  all  its  boroughs  with  the  exception  of  the  little  borough 
of  Richmond  with  a  population  of  100,000.  It  is  the  only  bor- 
ough where  the  government  has  been  free  from  scandal,  the  only 
one  in  which  there  seems  to  be  little  need  for  reform,  the  only 
one  in  which  the  Borough  President,  after  a  satisfactory  term, 
can  compel  the  politicians  to  renominate  him  on  the  threat  that 
if  they  fail  to  do  so  he  can  run  independently  and  win.  Mr. 
Cromwell  has  held  the  office  since  1901,  although  he  is  a  Repub- 
lican and  the  district  is  Democratic. 

In  no  country  except  the  United  States  is  the  unwieldy  dis- 
trict to  be  seen.  No  officers  are  elected  at 

-,  r  large  in  England  or  on  the  Continent  or  in  New 

Experience  °  ,.  .  ... 

Zealand  and  there  are  no  political  machines  in 

our  sense  of  the  phrase. 


RICHARD  S.  CHILDS  345 

Logically  the  application  of  the  principle  of  the  wieldy  districts 
would  call  for  the  abolition  of  the  governor's  office  in  the  state 
as  well  as  all  other  state  officers  elected  at  large !  In  the  case  of 
Congressmen  it  would  perhaps  necessitate  a  reduction  in  the  size 
of  the  district,  against  which  must  be  balanced  the  difficulties  of 
having  the  House  of  Representatives  a  very  numerous  body.  It 
would  call  for  the  abolition  of  the  Presidency  or  the  restoration 
of  the  electoral  college.  I  do  not  seriously  propose  any  of  these 
things  and  believe  that  the  problems  which  would  remain  if  dis- 
tricts were  made  wieldy  whenever  possible,  would  have  to  work 
out  their  salvation  by  some  other  and  unknown  route. 

Perhaps  partial  relief  may  be  found  in  extension  of  the  Oregon 
idea  of  having  the  state  pay  some  of  the  candidate's  expenses 
by  allowing  him  free  advertising  space  in  pamphlets  that  are  sup- 
plied free  to  all  voters. 

One  way  of  solving  the  difficulty  of  getting  a  candidate  elected 
in  a  large  district  without  the  aid  of  organized  political  machines 
might  be  found  in  a  scheme  of  proportional  rep- 
resentation wherein  all  officers  are  elected  at 
large,  but  each  voter  records  on  his  ballot  only  a  single  first 
choice,  second  choice,  third  choice,  etc.  A  candidate  to  be  suc- 
cessful under  this  plan  would  need  to  get  only  a  quota  instead  of 
a  plurality,  i.  e.,  if  there  were  twenty  aldermen  to  be  elected,  he 
would  have  to  get  the  support  of  somewhat  less  than  one-twen- 
tieth of  the  voters. 


The  Unearned  Increment  in  Cities. 

By  JOHN  MARTIN,  STAPLETON,  STATEN  ISLAND. 

From  the  returns  of  the  Federal  Census  so  far  issued  it  is 
plain  that  the  growth  of  cities,  well-markedin  previous  decades, 
is  continuing  and  even  accelerating.  So  soon  as  a  State  is  fairly- 
well  settled  cities  appear.  Before  many  years  the  population  of 
the  cities  is  found  increasing  faster  than  the  population  of  the 
rural  districts,  and,  later,  the  country  side  is  often  depleted  of 
its  inhabitants  to  feed  the  swollen  urban  districts.  Eastern  and 
Northern  America  is  fast  becoming  urbanized ;  our  political  prob- 
lems each  year  are  more  emphatically  municipal  problems. 

For  example,  in  the  rich  agricultural  state  of  Iowa  while  farm 
lands  increased  in  value  in  the  decade  1900  to  1910  by  122  per 
cent  and  the  population  of  the  seven  leading  cities  increased  by 
about  74,000,  the  population  of  the  remainder  of  the  state  actually 
decreased  by  about  81,000. 

The  urban  population  of  New  York  State  is  6,764,000  and  the 
rural  population  2,107,786 — less  than  one-third  as  many. 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  that  the  outstanding  effects  when  a 
city  grows  big  and  imposing  are  that  politics  are  corrupted,  coun- 
cils are  wasteful  and  inefficient,  taxes  are  high,  franchises  de- 
bauch alike  eminent  citizens  and  wicked  bosses,  the  saloon  and 
the  dive  debase  the  police  force,  and  altogether  the  democracy,  as 
the  boys  say,  is  "  up  against  it ". 

But  another  feature  quite  as  striking  as  any  of  these,  invariably 
present  when  population  thickens,  and  yet  seldom  considered  or 

fully  realized,  is  an  increase  of  site  values,  due 
TnpTpfl^p  of 

g.     vi  to  cornmum'ty  growth  and  to  the  habits  of  in- 

dustry, order  and  refinement  among  the  people. 
Universally  in  the  United  States  this  community-earned  incre- 
ment is  distributed  among  a  small  part  of  the  population,  who, 
alone,  are  lot-owners,  who,  for  this  increase,  specifically,  "  toil 
not  neither  do  they  spin  ",  and  to  whom,  therefore,  the  incre- 
ment is  as  John  Stuart  Mill  christened  it,  "  unearned  ". 

(346) 


JOHN  MARTIN  347 

Although  in  the  younger  cities  the  distribution  of  house  and 
lot  ownership  is  fairly  wide  and  the  winners  of  small  prizes  in 
the  gamble  for  increasing  site  values  are  therefore  fairly  numer- 
ous, as  fast  as  the  city  grows  the  values  at  the  centre,  which  are 
scooped  by  a  tiny  fraction  of  the  population,  increase  faster  than 
the  values  in  the  outlying  residential  areas.  As  land  values  soar, 
single  houses  give  way  to  tenements,  lowly  stores  and  offices  to 
sky-scrapers  and  the  proportion  of  owners  in  the  population 
diminishes,  until  the  condition  is  reached  such  as  in  New  York, 
where  all  the  land  is  owned  by  about  20,000  out  of  the  four  mil- 
lion inhabitants,  and  in  Galveston,  where  most  of  the  valuable 
real  estate  is  said  to  be  in  the  hands  of  or  controlled  by  a  score 
of  individuals. 

Examples  of  the  dazzling  increases  of  lot  values  at  the  centre 
of  cities  might  be  taken  from  North,  South,  East  or  West.    One 
from  Portland,  Ore.,  will  illustrate.    The  rental 
Portland  Ore.,        f      th    Pittock  Block  in  that  city  bought  out- 
ana  Boston  .  .     .    7* 

right  fifty  years  ago  for  the  insignificant  sum  of 

$300,  was  leased  recently  for  ninety-nine  years  at  a  rental  which 
begins  at  $30,000  and  will  increase  every  five  years,  until,  during 
the  last  semi-decade  of  the  period,  it  will  amount  to  about  $104,- 
ooo  a  year.  The  total  rental  for  the  period  will  amount  to  $6,- 
298,426 ;  and,  when  the  lease  runs  out,  the  property  will  be  worth 
$16,000,000 — quite  a  staggering  return  on  an  investment  of  $300. 
Compared  with  that  the  example,  lately  brought  to  attention  by 
Mayor  Fitzgerald,  is  not  impressive,  though,  in  itself,  it  is  start- 
ling enough.  A  parcel  of  land  in  Boston  which  cost  $238,000 
twenty  years  ago  is  now  worth  $695,100,  an  increase  of  nearly 
200  per  cent.  "  This  fortunate  investor,"  continues  the  Mayor, 
whose  purple  passages  one  may  quote  as  having  official  sanction, 
"  this  fortunate  investor  owed  every  dollar  of  this  added  value 
to  the  public.  No  intellectual  or  moral  quality  was  displayed  by 
him  in  acquiring  it  and  no  form  of  service  was  rendered.  His 
only  talent  was  to  purchase  and  to  keep.  Meanwhile,  the  growth 
of  population,  the  ever-swelling  tides  of  travel  and  of  trade,  the 
expenditures  of  the  public  money  on  pavements,  sidewalks,  lights 
and  fire  and  police  protection,  the  building  of  a  great  court  house, 
in  a  word,  all  the  multifold  activities  of  the  community  at  large 
enhanced  the  value  of  the  estate." 


348  THE  UNEARNED  INCREMENT  IN  CITIES 

The  annual  increment  in  the  value  of  the  land  of  Philadelphia 
from  1885  to  1900  amounted  to  $19,500,000,  or  three-quarters 
of  the  total  annual  expenditures  of  the  city.  Boston's  annual  in- 
crement for  fifteen  years  prior  to  1907  was  sixteen  millions,  and 
Washington's  upwards  of  ten  millions.  Altogether  Philadelphia 
has  presented  a  total  site  value  of  over  nine  hundred  millions 
and  Boston  of  over  675  millions  to  its  lucky  ground  owners. 

But  New  York — stupendous,  rich,  amazing  New  York — offers 
the  supreme  instance  of  sky-scraping  value  increments.  "  The 
assessed  value  of  land,  exclusive  of  improve- 
ments, in  the  City  of  New  York,"  say  the  Tax 
Commissioners  officially,  "  is  greater  than  the  assessed  value  of 
all  the  real  estate,  improvements  included,  in  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania." Bow  your  heads !  O  Philadelphia  and  Pittsburg !  and 
all  ye  cities  of  the  anthracite  region! 

"  As  population  increases,"  continue  the  commissioners,  "  the 
value  of  land  increases  more  rapidly  than  the  value  of  improve- 
ments, until  a  condition  is  reached  like  that  of  the  financial  sec- 
tion of  the  Borough  of  Manhattan,  where  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  erect  a  building  equal  in  value  to  the  land  on  which  it  stands." 
For  the  last  four  years,  two  of  them  fat  and  two  lean,  the  aver- 
age annual  increase  in  the  value  of  the  naked  site  of  Greater  New 
York  has  been  $159,573,813,  all  but  a  narrow  margin  of  which 
is  due  to  community  effort  and  not  to  individual  industry  or 
skill.  The  whole  of  these  unthinkable  sums  has  gone  as  a  free 
gift  into  the  pockets  of  one-two-hundredth  of  the  population. 
Some  have  got  more;  some  less.  In  odd  spots  values  have  re- 
ceded; in  general  they  have  fast  advanced.  On  the  average,  the 
fortunes  of  the  taxpayers,  without  effort  on  their  part,  have 
steadily  swollen.  For  the  improvements  they  have  made  they 
could  get  to-day  all  that  they  have  expended  on  them ;  and,  in  ad- 
dition, they  could  sell  their  lots,  in  the  aggregate,  for  over  $600,- 
000,000  more  than  they  would  have  fetched  four  years  ago.  Well 
might  Professor  Thorold  Rogers  exclaim,  "  The  landlord  grows 
rich  in  his  sleep  ". 

This  phenomenon  of  land  values  that  makes  the  tales  of 
Aladdin's  lamp  look  squalid  is  not  confined  to  America.  Every 
civilized  country  displays  it  as  a  prominent  feature  in  its  civiliza- 


JOHN  MARTIN  349 

tion.    Some  countries,  on  the  lookout  for  new  resources  of  public 

revenue,  have  tapped  this  overflowing  reservoir 

German  of    wealth>      Qf    these    relatively    enlightened 

Experience  .      ,      _  _          „  . '   .  ., 

lands    Germany    and    Great    Britain    are    the 

foremost.  Germany  adopts  two  ways  to  save  a  part  of  the  treas- 
ure for  the  community,  land-owning  and  land-taxing.  Most 
German  towns  possess  a  considerable  amount  of  land.  Strass- 
bourg  owns  365  square  yards  for  each  inhabitant;  and  Aachen, 
Dantzig,  Stetten,  Frankfurt,  Mannheim,  Breslau,  Magdeburg  and 
Dortmund  have  from  119  to  239  square  yards  per  head  of  the 
population,  while  Berlin,  and  nine  other  large  towns  hold  some- 
what smaller  areas  per  head.  When  it  is  recalled  that  120  square 
yards  for  each  inhabitant  means  the  possession,  by  a  city  of 
200,000  people,  of  a  municipal  estate  of  50,000  acres,  the  signifi- 
cance of  these  figures  becomes  clear.  Further,  most  of  the  Ger- 
man towns  are  actively  increasing  their  holdings  of  land,  partly 
because  several  years  ago  the  Prussian  government  issued  direc- 
tions to  the  governors  of  the  twelve  provinces  into  which  the 
kingdom  is  divided,  that  they  should  use  their  influence  to  induce 
all  Prussian  towns  to  buy  as  much  ground  as  they  could  obtain, 
and  to  retain  possession  of  all  they  then  held  and  might  after- 
wards acquire.  The  Prussian  government,  you  observe,  is  teach- 
ing the  same  thrifty  determination  not  to  let  go  of  any  city  lot 
as  the  Astor  family  has  displayed  to  its  great  advantage  in  New 
York.  Since  1890  the  quantity  of  land  held  by  Cologne  has  in- 
creased twelve- fold;  that  held  by  Chemnitz,  six-fold;  and  the 
holdings  of  Munich  and  Dresden  have  increased  three-fold. 

Not  content  with  being  extensive  landowners,  so  that  they  may 

skim  the  cream  of  the  community-earned  increment  as  it  rises, 

German  cities  are  taking  a  share  of  this  incre- 

ir  y  ?*.  ment  as  it  forms  on  land  in  private  possession. 

German  Cities        „  *„         v 

The  Increase  of  Value  Tax,    which  means  a 

special  tax  on  the  increase  of  value  shown  on  successive  sales  of 
lots,  has  been  passed  upon  favorably  by  imperial,  state,  and  muni- 
cipal legislative  bodies  and  it  has  been  declared  constitutional  by 
the  supreme  court.  Beginning  with  Cologne  in  1905,  this  tax  is 
now  in  effect  in  Dortmund,  Essen,  Frankfort,  Leipsic  and  a 
number  of  other  towns,  including  three  of  the  suburbs  of  Berlin. 


350  THE  UNEARNED  INCREMENT  IN  CITIES 

Some  form  of  progression,  varying  considerably  from  town  to 
town,  is  always  employed  and  some  minimum  percentage  of  the 
unearned  increment  is  left  free — in  Cologne  ten  per  cent,  in  Leig- 
nitz  only  five  per  cent. 

With  respect  to  the  amount  of  the  tax,  Professor  Adolph 
Wagner,  who  has  been  a  leader  in  the  movement  for  the  impost, 
says :  "  One  can  hardly  go  high  enough.  Even  here,  however, 
I  would  leave  something  to  the  winner — let  us  say  ten  per  cent. 
But  the  city  should  get  ninety  per  cent.  As,  however,  such  a 
proposition  is  not  yet  practically  possible,  let  us  say  50  per  cent, 
or,  even,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  thirty  per  cent."  In  practice 
thirty  per  cent  has  already  been  approximated  on  very  large  in- 
crements of  value. 

In  England  also  the  tax-gatherer  will  lay  his  hand,  in  future* 

on  the  increments  created  by  the  community.    The  Lloyd-George 

budget  against  which  the  House  of  Lords  un- 

n  n      °«  ^  successfully  rebelled,  provided  that  twenty  per 

ueorge  -Budget  . 

cent  of  the  increases  in  urban  land  values  in 

time  to  come  shall  be  paid  into  the  public  purse ;  and,  though  the 
squires  and  territorial  magnates  raged  and  the  threatened  inter- 
ests prophesied  red  ruin  and  combustion,  the  case  for  the  tax, 
which  Cabinet  Ministers  remorselessly  laid  before  the  country, 
was  so  cogent  and  unanswerable,  that  the  electors  supported  it, 
the  House  of  Lords  finally  voted  it  and  Britannia  still  rules  the 
waves — at  least  as  much  as  she  ever  did. 

In  New  York  the  principle  of  making  landowners  pay  for  the 
public  improvements  which  directly  increase  the  value  of  their 
holdings  has  been  recognized  in  the  law  and  in  the  practice  of 
assessing  upon  abutting  property,  in  whole  or  in  part,  the  cost  of 
opening  streets,  building  sewers,  laying  out  small  parks  and  the 
like.  An  extension  of  this  principle,  of  real  significance,  is  in 
course  of  development.  New  York  has  entered  on  a  policy  of 
public  ownership  of  rapid  transit  lines,  and  has  already  one  large 
system  of  subways  and  elevated  lines  in  every  successful  operation 
through  a  lessee.  But  subways  are  costly  and  the  borrowing 
power  of  the  city,  limited  by  the  constitution  to  ten  per  cent  of 
the  assessed  valuation  of  real  estate  within  the  city,  has  been  so 
far  exhausted  for  other  public  improvements  as  not  to  leave 


JOHN  MARTIN  351 

enough  for  the  network  of  transit  lines,  municipally  owned, 
which  the  people  are  unanimous  in  demanding.  So  it  was  plain 
that  the  city's  credit  could  not  be  pledged  to  grid-iron  the  outer 
suburbs,  that  await  development,  with  electric  railways.  Then 
a  few  inquisitive  persons  noticed  that  the  existing  line  had  di- 
rectly caused  marvelous  increases  in  land  values  that  had  all  gone 
to  a  handful  of  lucky  real-estate  owners  and  operators.  So  the 
City  Club  made  a  minute,  painstaking,  scientific  investigation 
which  disclosed  the  following  facts: 

The  aggregate  rise  in  land  value  north  of   I35th   Street  in 

Manhattan,  and  in  The  Bronx,  due  to  the  building  of  the  Subway, 

reckoned  after  allowing  for  the  normal  rise  due 

ibway  In-  t     general  causes,  was  $80,500,000.     The  cost 

creases  Values 

of  the  entire  subway  from  the  Battery  north- 
ward was  $43,000,000.  So  that  the  property  benefited,  in  the  dis- 
tricts just  mentioned,  could  have  paid  this  entire  cost,  and  yet 
have  had  a  net  profit,  due  solely  to  the  running  of  the  subway, 
of  over  $37,500,000.  Had  it  paid  only  for  the  portion  running 
through  its  own  territory  there  would  have  remained  a  profit  of 
over  $67,425,000. 

"  In  view  of  this  fact,"  asks  the  Club's  committee,  "  would  it 
not  be  reasonable  to  require  property  benefited  in  outlying  dis- 
tricts to  pay  for  the  cost  of  a  rapid  transit  line  built  to  serve  it?" 

A  majority  of  real-estate  owners  whose  lands  await  transit 
facilities  to  make  them  immediately  available  for  settlement,  ex- 
pressed, when  asked,  a  willingness  to  be  assessed  for  lines  which 
would  open  up  their  property.  Both  in  Brooklyn  and  in  Queens 
petitions  have  been  signed  by  a  majority  of  owners  upon  a  route 
and  presented  to  the  Public  Service  Commission  asking  for  lines 
to  be  paid  for  on  this  assessment  plan.  But  the  law  was  not 
adapted  to  such  a  system.  Therefore,  upon  the  request  of  the 
Public  Service  Commission,  amendments  to  the  Rapid  Transit 
Act  were  passed  two  winters  ago,  which  were  intended  to  make 
the  plan  practicable.  But,  unfortunately,  there  is  considerable 
doubt  whether  the  Public  Service  Commission  drafted  the  amend- 
ments expertly  enough  to  accomplish  the  purpose  desired.  The 
city's  credit  cannot  be  pledged  on  account  of  the  constitutional  re- 
strictions; and,  therefore,  the  bonds  issued  under  the  plan  must 


352  THE  UNEARNED  INCREMENT  IN  CITIES 

be  a  first  lien  on  the  property  benefited  and  the  buyer  of  the 
bonds  must  be  in  a  position,  himself,  without  the  interposition  of 
city  officers,  to  foreclose  the  mortgage  on  the  property  in  case 
the  bond  is  not  paid  when  due,  or  else  bankers  will  not  handle 
the  bonds.  Of  course  the  real-estate  owners  would  always  pre- 
fer that  the  city  should  pay  for  the  lines  outright  and  leave  them 
to  take  all  the  profits ;  and,  should  a  single  new  line  be  built  with 
outlying  links  not  assessed  against  the  abutting  owners,  of  course 
the  owners  everywhere  else  will  decline  to  pay  for  lines  to  their 
property  on  the  ground  that,  if  their  taxes  go  to  pay  for  other 
peoples'  routes,  it  is  only  fair  that  the  other  peoples'  taxes  should 
go  to  pay  for  their  routes. 

The  bids  for  the  construction  of  new  subway  lines  opened  a 
fortnight  ago  by  the  commission  do  not  include  the  extremities 
of  the  routes,  extremities  which  can  most  justly  be  charged 
against  the  property  benefited.  But  the  cost  of  construction  of 
the  main  stems  is  clearly  going  to  be  so  heavy  that  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  city's  credit  can  stand  it,  and  the  plans  of  construc- 
tion may  have  to  be  modified  so  as  to  cheapen  the  work.  Anyway 
it  is  plain  that  the  city's  credit  will  not  bear  the  cost  of  the  out- 
lying links,  and  necessity,  which,  as  the  copy-books  say,  knows  no 
law,  will  compel  the  inauguration  of  the  juster  method.  Friends 
of  the  Public  Service  Commission  hope  that  it  will  try  to  rectify 
the  law,  at  the  next  session  of  the  legislature,  and  make  it  in- 
dubitably practicable  to  issue  bonds  on  the  assessment  plan,  in 
a  form  which  will  find  a  ready  market.  If  that  be  done  and  the 
system  goes  into  actual  effect  New  York  will  be  a  pioneer  among 
American  cities  along  a  new  road  that  leads  to  justice. 


Summary  of  the  Report  of  the  School 
Extension  Committee. 

By  EDWARD  J.  WARD, 

C  ha irm  an,  Advisor  in  Civic  and  Social  Center  Development,  Extension  Division, 
University  of  Wisconsin. 

We  have  the  public  school  plants,  but  most  of  us  no  more  ap- 
preciate what  it  means  to  have  these  possessions  than  the  people 
in  Europe  before  1492  appreciated  what  it  meant  to  have  the 
earth.  There  was  a  whole  hemisphere  of  incalculable  wealth  and 
opportunity  which  they  knew  nothing  about.  And  in  the  public 
school  plant  there  is  a  whole  hemisphere  of  value  unrealized,  un- 
discovered, by  those  who  think  of  the  public  school  plant  as 
simply  a  place  for  the  education,  the  teaching  of  children,  with 
the  added  use,  as  an  occasional  evening  school. 

But  while  the  majority  of  us  see  nothing  more  in  the  school 
plant  than  an  educational  institution  for  teaching  children,  lead- 
ing students  of  political,  social,  educational,  eco- 
nomic and  other  public  problems  are  alive  to  the 
School  Plant 

tremendous  importance  of  the  undeveloped  re- 
sources in  the  wider  uses  of  the  public  school  plant. 

It  was  because  of  this  fact  that,  when  a  year  ago  the  committee 
of  twenty  leaders  in  American  thought  was  named  to  serve  with 
me,  and  they  were  asked  to  prepare  articles  upon  the  various 
phases  of  the  extension  of  the  use  of  school  plants  as  social 
centers,  not  one  of  them  needed  to  be  told  that  this  is  vitally  im- 
pcrtant.  As  all  roads  used  to  lead  to  Rome,  so  these  students 
of  public  affairs  show  that  to-day,  nearly  all  lines  of  thinking 
upon  public  questions  lead  to  the  public  school,  both  in  its  prime, 
never-to-be-forgotten  use  and  in  its  extension  as  a  common 
social  center. 

I  will  not  stop  to  read  the  table  of  contents  of  this  report  nor 
the  list  of  names  of  those  who  have  made  it  worth  while  by 
their  contributions,  but  I  begin  at  once  by  a  definition  of  the  term 
social  center: 

(353) 


354      REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

The  term  social  center  is  sometimes  confused  with  civic  center, 
but  the  term  civic  center  has  come  to  have  a  distinct  meaning  as 
the  city  center,  the  convenient  and  beautiful  grouping  of  the 
municipal  buildings  and  grounds  in  connection  with  the  town  or 
city  hall,  the  focal  point,  in  which  is  expressed  the  unity  of  the 
city. 

The  same  impulse  toward  economy  and  intelligent,  orderly  ar- 
rangement of  the  physical  city,  which  is  responsible  for  the  civic 
center  movement  aims  toward  the  convenient  and  beautiful  group- 
ing of  public  buildings  and  grounds  in  the  smaller  sections  or  di- 
visions of  the  city. 

The  term  social  center  is  applicable  to  these  neighborhood 
focal  points  and  the  public  buildings  and  grounds  there  assembled 
because,  being  more  intimately  connected  with 
T)0(fi  d  6r  the  homes  of  the  people,  their  use  includes  social 
activities,  recreational  and  educational,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  more  purely  administrative  uses  of  the  build- 
ings which  make-up  the  civic  center. 

The  social  center  is  to  the  neighborhood,  the  district,  the 
smaller  section  of  the  city,  as  the  civic  center  is  to  the  city  as  a 
whole. 

The  ideal,  complete  civic  center  has  not  yet  been  realized  in 
any  city  except  perhaps  on  paper.  The  ideal,  completely-equipped 
neighborhood  social  center  has  not  yet  been  realized,  even  on 
paper. 

It  is  high  time  that  the  city-planning  movement  should  em- 
phasize from  the  point  of  view  of  economy  in  physical  construc- 
tion, the  neighborhood  social  center  idea,  for  in 

some  cities,  notably  Chicago,  common  neighbor- 
nouses  , 

hood  needs  are  coming  to  be  met  not  by  the  ex- 
tension of  the  normal  nucleus  of  the  neighborhood  social  center 
plant  which  is  the  public  school,  but  by  the  development  of  separ- 
ate recreation  buildings.  The  wonderful  small  park  and  field- 
house  development  in  Chicago  had  its  beginning  as  a  separate 
development  simply  because  the  school  authorities  in  Chicago, 
a  dozen  years  ago,  lacked  wider  vision  of  the  possible  social  center 
development  in  connection  with  the  school  plant. 

The  man  who  is  chiefly  responsible  for  the  splendid  work  of 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  355 

the  South  Park  field-house  system  told  me  that  the  better  ar- 
rangement would  be  an  extension  in  connection  with  the  school 
plant  in  each  district,  which  would  make  one  common  center  for 
education,  recreation,  reading  and  all  sorts  of  social  and  civic 
activities.  The  shortsightedness  of  the  school  authorities  in  Chi- 
cago has  cost  that  city  millions  of  dollars  and  made  it,  splendid 
as  it  is,  less  than  the  ideal  in  neighborhood  center  development. 

But  while  the  term  civic  center  is  already  appropriated  by  the 
one  common  city  center,  the  essential  basis  of  social  center  de- 
velopment is  in  the  civic  use  of  the  school  buildings  as  a  place 
for  the  free  discussion  by  citizens  of  the  problems  of  democracy, 
a  place  wherein  the  true  government,  which  is  the  citizenship, 
finds  expression. 

There  is  one  public-school  building  in  this  country  which  is 
used  as  a  day  school,  an  evening  school,  a  vacation  school,  a  play- 
ground house,  a  public  gymnasium  and  bath  place,  a  branch  public 
library,  a  lecture  hall,  a  political  discussion  forum,  a  moving-pic- 
ture theatre,  a  public-dance  hall,  a  local  health  office  and  an  all- 
round  neighborhood  club-house.  It  typifies  as  much  as  any  in 
the  country  the  neighborhood  social  center.  A  number  of  the 
people  who  meet  in  this  building  were  asked  to  prepare  definitions 
of  the  term  "  social  center."  These  definitions  are  significant  as 
showing  the  fundamental  importance  of  the  civic,  democratic 
foundation  of  the  whole  institution.  Here  are  four  of  the  defini- 
tions which  are  typical :  "  The  social  center  is  a  foundation  of 
American  democracy,  a  place  where  everybody  meets  on  an  equal 
standing,  disregarding  political,  religious  and  other  differences; 
where  one  can  voice  his  opinions  publicly  and  meet  all  with  a 
sprit  of  brotherhood." 

"The  social  center  is  a  place  where  the  spirit  of  democracy 
is  very  evident,  where  everyone  has  a  chance  for  mental  and 
physical  development,  where  you  can  meet  your  neighbors  for 
discussion  on  things  of  vital  importance." 

"  The  social  center  is  a  place  of  democracy  where  people  of  all 
nationalities,  religions  and  political  parties  meet  to  discuss  ques- 
tions of  the  day,  a  place  of  education  and  recreation  where  every- 
body can  develop  mind  and  body." 

"  The  social  center  is  a  point  of  concentration  where  the  people 


356     REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

of  the  neighborhood  mix  in  friendly  acquaintance  and  discuss 
questions  for  the  betterment  of  the  people." 

The  remarkable  thing  is  that  these  persons,  all  of  them  familiar 
with  the  entertaining,  recreational  and  social  features,  cut  past 
these  and  pointed  out  the  essential  mark,  the  democracy,  the  free 
discussion,  the  free  expression ;  that  is,  the  civic  foundation. 

There  are  cities  (Buffalo  is  one  of  these)  which  propose  to  de- 
velop the  use  of  their  public  school  buildings  as  neighporhood 
social  centers,  but  to  limit  the  right  of  free  discussion,  the  right 
of  the  citizens  to  express  unhampered  democracy  in  them. 

So  much  by  way  of  definition;  now  for  a  summary  of  Pro- 
fessor Zueblin's  contribution  to  this  report  on  "  Historic  Ante- 
cedents of  the  Modern  Social  Center." 

"  The  organization  of  people  for  self-expression  dates  back 

to  primitive  times.    Public  discussions  were  familiar  in  the  little 

democracies    of    Greece    and    subsequently    in 

Rome.    The  German  mark  and  the  Swiss  corn- 
Antecedent*  r       •  L    L     u  c  t       j  £ 
mune  furnish  the  best  examples  of  freedom  of 

public  discussion  and  public  action;  the  oldest  democratic  or- 
ganization now  existing,  and  historically  the  most  important,  is 
the  Landesgemeinde  of  Switzerland.  From  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury the  male  citizens  of  several  Swiss  cantons  have  assembled 
from  their  mountain  homes  for  the  conduct  of  their  public  affairs 
by  the  living  voice  in  the  open  air." 

Professor  Zueblin  follows  this  popular  democratic  assembly 
down  through  the  churches  and  the  guilds  and  closes  with  these 
words :  "  The  larger  use  of  the  school  houses  and  the  organization 
of  social  centers  are  not  novelties.  They  are  the  twentieth-cen- 
tury revival  and  expression  of  that  democratic  spirit  which  has 
been  vital  at  intervals,  for  more  than  two  thousand  years." 

Do  you  notice  that  when  asked  to  discuss  the  historic  ante- 
cedents of  the  modern  social  center,  Professor  Zueblin  finds 
them  in  the  ancient  forms  of  free  discussion  and  democratic  ex- 
pression. 

Now  to  the  paper  of  Dr.  Samuel  M.  Crothers,  of  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  "  The  American  Historic  Antecedents  of  the  Modern 
Social  Center." 

"  The  present  movement  for  using  the  school  houses  of  a  city 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  357 

for  the  promotion  of  neighborhood  life  is  one  that  has  a  long 
history — as  long  as  democracy.     It  is  the  at- 

Amencan  tempt  to  adapt  ancient  usages  to  modern  condi- 

Antecedents  _,  .       ? ,        r ,     . 

tions.      The    sense    of  social    solidarity    which 

gives  rich  and  deep  meaning  to  the  word  '  neighbor '  is  in  danger 
of  being  lost.  The  neighbor  is  the  '  nigh-dweller,'  but  what  sig- 
nifies this  if  the  door  of  his  dwelling  be  shut?  The  house  with 
its  locks  and  bars  becomes  the  symbol  of  exclusive  individual- 
ism." Dr.  Crothers  then  gives  a  brief  survey  of  the  democratic 
expressions  in  ancient  Jewish  times  and  in  the  meetings  of  the 
freeholders  of  the  primitive  townships  on  the  old  moot  hills 
where  England  learned  the  worth  of  public  opinion,  of  public 
discussion,  the  worth  of  argument,  the  common  sense,  the  gen- 
eral convictions  to  which  discussion  leads,  where  England 
"  learned  to  be  the  mother  of  parliaments."  He  then  comes  to 
America  and  traces  the  line  through  the  New  England  town 
meetings  and  the  democratic  expression  in  the  primitive  school- 
house.  He  ends  with  these  words :  "  Those  who  are  opening  our 
school-houses  for  the  largest  public  service  are  simply  carrying 
on  the  traditions  of  freedom." 

Or  turn  to  that  description  of  the  place  of  the  public  school 
in  the  early  American  community,  which  "  Gene  "  Wood,  whose 
memory  is  best,  of  all  the  men  who  write  to-day,  gives.  .  .  . 
"  Sing  of  the  little  red  school-house  on  the  hill  and  in  everybody's 
heart  a  chord  trembles  in  unison.  As  we  hear  its  witching 
strains,  we  are  all  lodge  brethren.  We  are  all  lodge  brethren 
and  the  air  is  all  Auld  Lang  Syne,  and  we  are  clasping  hands 
across,  knitted  into  one  living  solidarity.  This  is  the  true  democ- 
lacy  that  batters  down  the  walls  that  separate  us  from  each 
other,  the  walls  of  cast  distinction  and  color  prejudice  and  na- 
tional hatred  and  religious  contempt  and  all  the  petty  anti-social 
meannesses." 

Do  you  notice  that  each  of  these,  like  those  people  who  from 
witRin  the  social  center  wrote  definitions  of  it,  speaks  first  and 
strongest  of  the  democracy,  the  freedom,  of  the  ancient  fore- 
runners of  the  modern  social  center. 

Cut  out  this  democratic  foundation  in  the  right  of  free  dis- 
cussion of  all  public  questions  and  the  line  of  descent  of  the  in- 


358     REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

stitution,  which  you  will  develop,  runs  back  not  to  the  free  gath- 
erings of  democratic  Greece  and  Republican  Rome  and  the  free- 
man's meetings  of  Saxon  times ;  but  the  institution  for  mere  en- 
tertainment and  recreation  which  you  develop  runs  its  lines  back 
to  and  finds  its  prototype  in  the  degenerate  days  when  Greeks  and 
Romans  met,  not  for  public  discussion,  but  only  for  public  cir- 
cuses and  shows. 

The  first  thing,  the  fundamental  thing,  in  the  movement  for 
the  wider  use  of  school  buildings,  in  the  American  spirit,  is  their 
free  and  gratuitous  use  for  the  free  examination  and  discussion 
of  public  questions.  Henry  C.  Campbell,  president  of  the  Mil- 
waukee Federation  of  Civic  Societies  and  managing  editor  of  one 
of  the  most  influential  newspapers  in  the  northwest,  writes  upon 
this  fundamental  development  under  the  title,  "  The  Public 
School  Buildings  as  Neighborhood  Civic  Club  Houses." 

"  For  generations  the  school  houses  have  been  monuments  of 
neglected  opportunity.  The  policy  of  closing  them  to  the  people 
outside  of  regular  school  hours)  has  retarded 

the  devel°Pment  of  that  hi§her  tvPe  of  citizen- 
ship which  makes  for  better  government.  It 
matters  not  where  it  is  located,  whether  in  a  congested  city  dis- 
trict, or  in  a  hamlet,  or  on  a  prairie  among  scattered  farm  houses, 
a  public  school  building  is  a  potential  center  of  civic  activity,  a 
potential  neighborhood  civic  club  house.  If  there  should  be  real- 
ized anything  like  a  fair  measure  of  that  which  the  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  public  school  buildings  of  the  nation  offer  in 
raising  the  plane  of  citizenship  and  in  increasing  the  people's 
capacity  for  self-government,  democracy  would  be  vitalized  to  a 
degree  that  would  make  it  militant  and  all-conquering.  It  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say,  that,  in  making  the  school  house  the 
forum  of  the  people,  lies  the  chief  hope  of  perpetuating  the  re- 
public and  of  perfecting  its  institutions." 

Mr.  Campbell  goes  on  to  give  a  specific  and  detailed  expres- 
sion of  the  methods  by  which  one  city  is  seeking  to  develop  the 
use  of  public  school  buildings  as  neighborhood  civic  club  houses. 

But,  you  say  "  Wisconsin  is  progressive."  All  right,  let  us  go 
to  Boston.  Livy  S.  Richard,  editor  of  the  Boston  Common,  says 
in  the  paper  on  "  The  Public  School  Building  as  a  Non-Partisan 
Political  Headquarters  " : 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  359 

"  Until  recently,  the  common  meeting  place  in  America  for  free 
discussion  has  been  the  saloon.  In  at  least  the  larger  cities,  most 

political  rallies  are  still  held  in  a  hall  over  or 
As  Neighborhood  alongside  a  ban  l  am  not  quarreling  with  the 
Headquarters  .  .\ 

saloon — it  has  its  place,  which  history  shows  is 

a  large  one  in  American  affairs,  and  whatever  its  faults,  it  has 
certainly  one  merit — in  a  clumsy  way,  it  is  democratic ;  in  it  men 
meet  in  fellowship,  as  men. 

"  But  why  give  the  saloon,  and  more  especially  the  not-always 
edifying  personage  who  keeps  it,  a  monopoly  of  this  service  for 
democracy,  when  you  and  I  and  all  other  citizens  have  paid  taxes 
to  construct  another,  and,  architecturally,  usually  a  much  bettter 
plant  ?  Why  has  it  been  so  long  in  entering  the  public  mind  that 
the  modern  city  schoolhouse,  usually  dark  and  idle  most  nights 
of  the  week,  offers  the  ideal  solution  of  the  problem  of  where  to 
bring  men  together  for  free  discussion  of  the  issues  of  citizen- 
ship." 

Mr.  Richard  then  goes  into  detail  in  describing  the  experience 
of  one  city  in  the  use  of  school  buildings  for  political  and  other 
discussions.  He  closes  his  paper  with  the  statement :  "the  school- 
house  is  the  appropriate  headquarters  for  non-partisan  politics." 

I  shall  not  take  so  much  time  in  dealing  with  the  superstruc- 
ture of  social  center  development,  but  this  foundation  in  the  free 
democratic  use  of  school  buildings  for  non-partisan,  non-sectar- 
ian, non-exclusive  gatherings  of  citizens  is  fundamental  in  im- 
portance. This  wider  use  of  the  school  building  is  feasible  in 
every  community.  It  requires  practically  no  equipment.  It  costs 
the  city  almost  nothing  except  the  mere  lighting,  heat  and  janitor 
service,  and  it  is  the  element  which  gives  significance  and  promise 
to  the  whole. 

With  regard  to  this  civic  use  of  the  school  buildings  as  neigh- 
borhood gathering  places  for  citizens,  let  me  point  out  one  or 
two  of  its  important  bearings. 

The  Relation  of  this  Civic  Use  of  School  Buildings  to  Public 

Officials. 

Justice  Charles  E.  Hughes,  while  he  was  governor  of  New 
York  State,  visited  one  of  these  non-partisan  gatherings  of  citi- 


360      REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

zens  in  a  public  school  building.    He  caught  the  note  of  democracy 
and  freedom,  he  recognized  its  significance  and 

?licyieof  he  said,  "I  am  more  interested  in  what  you 

School  Houses  .'  .  .  ,     ,       . 

are  doing  and  in  what  it  stands  for  than  any- 
thing else  in  the  world.  You  are  buttressing  the  foundations  of 
democracy."  He  spoke  of  the  separation  of  the  public  official 
from  the  people,  surrounded  as  he  is  by  partisan  and  interested 
persons.  He  spoke  of  the  thrill  and  inspiration  that  came  through 
such  an  opportunity  to  meet  people  of  all  parties  for  the  discus- 
sion of  the  common  problems. 

If  Governor  Hughes  needed  such  opportunities  for  meeting 
broadly  democratic  gatherings  of  men  interested  in  public 
affairs,  is  it  not  probable  that  most  public  officials  would  be  bene- 
fitted  by  such  opportunities? 

Coming  from  the  state  to  the  city  administration,  let  me  quote 
a  letter  from  Mayor  Seidel,  written  to  a  neighborhood  civic  club, 
formed  to  meet  in  one  of  the  public  school  buildings : 

OCTOBER  28,  1910. 

To  the  Citizens'  Meeting  in  the  Sixteenth  District  School  No.  I. 

Fellow  Citizens  of  Milwaukee: 

You  have  gathered  together  to  take  advantage  of  the  opportu- 
nity that  belongs  to  the  citizens  in  the  use  of  public  school  build- 
ings, to  develop  the  intelligence  and  consciousness  of  the  real 
government  of  Milwaukee.  We  have  been  saying  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  city  is  in  the  hands  of  the  citizens,  and  yet  up  to 
this  time  the  only  actual  government  which  the  citizens  have  ex- 
pressed has  been  through  their  voting  only  once  or  twice  a  year. 
This  should  not  be  the  case  in  a  real  democracy.  There  should 
be  an  opportunity  for  citizens  to  get  together  to  discuss  the  prob- 
lems of  the  city  frequently.  This  is  necessary  in  order  that  we 
may  keep  up  with  changed  conditions,  and  in  order  to  develop 
civic  intelligence.  It  is  necessary  also  in  order  to  develop  that 
broad  acquaintance  between  men  of  different  parties,  creeds  and 
classes  which  will  lead  to  a  better  common  understanding,  and  a 
more  friendly  feeling  throughout  the  city. 

We  all  remember  the  way  in  which  men  used  to  come  together 
in  the  school  house  meetings  in  the  country,  and  we  look  back 
in  our  history  to  the  time  of  the  old  New  England  town  meetings 
as  one  of  real  democracy.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  cannot 
develop  the  same  genuine  democracy,  the  same  neighborliness 


EDWARD  7.  WARD  361 

through  the  use  of  the  public  school  buildings  as  neighborhood 
civic  club  houses  in  Milwaukee. 

We,  the  people  of  Milwaukee,  are  divided  into  many  groups 
on  religious,  political  and  social  lines,  but  we  are  united  in  the 
desire  to  make  Milwaukee  the  best  city  to  live  in,  in  this  country, 
and  there  seems  to  be  agreement  that  the  use  of  the  school  build- 
ings as  neighborhood  civic  club  houses,  as  common  gathering 
places  for  all  of  the  people,  for  recreation  and  entertainment,  is  a 
most  desirable  means  of  getting  together  for  this  great  purpose. 

As  a  public  servant,  I  welcome  the  opportunity  that  this  sort 
of  gathering  gives  for  a  free  and  open  discussion  of  the  topics 
of  common  interest  upon  a  non-partisan  platform.  Such  discus- 
sion will  help  the  servants  of  the  people  to  learn  what  you  de- 
sire, and  it  will  furnish  a  chance  for  the  public  servants  to  talk 
over  the  matters  in  which  they  seek  to  represent  the  people. 

I  hope  that  your  example  may  be  followed  in  every  section  of 
the  city,  until  misunderstanding  and  prejudice  shall  have  been 
removed  by  the  development  of  civic  friendliness  and  intelligent 
public  spirit.  EMIL  SEIDEL,  Mayor. 

I  might  quote  some  more  statements  from  other  mayors,  but 
perhaps  no  officials  need  more  the  immediate  and  free  contact 
with  citizens  than  the  aldermen  and  councilmen  in  such  cities  as 
have  not  yet  adopted  commission  government.  Here  are  quo- 
tations from  speeches  of  two  aldermen  in  different  cities  in  New 
York  State :  "  If  every  member  of  the  common  council  and 
every  other  public  servant  had  frequently  such  opportunities  as 
this  to  discuss  public  matters  with  those  whom  he  seeks  to  repre- 
sent, it  would  mean  that  we  would  have  a  cleaner  government 
and  a  better  representation  of  the  people's  interests."  And  this 
from  a  leading  public  official  in  this  his  city :  "  I  am  in  favor  of 
opening  all  schools  for  meetings  to  take  up  problems  that  the  peo- 
ple ought  to  let  the  public  servants  know  about.  If  the  public 
servants  know  by  these  meetings  that  you  are  watching  them, 
you  will  get  something." 

And  now  just  a  word  about  a  detail  of  the  political,  civic  use 
of  school  buildings. 

The  Public  School  Building  as  a  Polling  Place. 
"  The  city  of  Madison,  Wis.,  has  begun  the  use  of  public  school 


362      REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

buildings  as  polling  places,  and  the  school  buildings  in  Milwaukee 
next  spring  will  probably  be  used  for  this  pur- 

Pomnff  Places       p°se'   saving  the  dty  ^'5°°  a  yean     Mayor 
Gaynor,  of  New  York  is  especially  interested 

in  the  economy  and  common  sense  of  this  use. 

Now  suppose  that  the  whole  political  machinery — campaign 
meetings,  political  discussions  and  voting  were  shifted  to  the 
public  school  building;  don't  you  see  that,  whether  we  come 
quickly  to  woman  suffrage  or  not,  at  any  rate  we  would  do  much 
to  lift  the  tone  of  the  "  highest  exercise  of  our  American  sov- 
ereignty." We  would  have  it  in  an  atmosphere,  which  would  at 
least  be  fit  for  the  half  of  our  population  which  is  to-day  dis- 
franchised, to  breathe. 

"  Politics  is  just  a  mode  of  expressing  human  sympathy,"  says 
David  Gray  son,  in  the  American  Magazine. 

In  recognition  of  the  opportunity  which  the  school  building 
offers  for  the  expression  of  real  democracy,  there  was  a  triple 
plank  dealing  with  the  wider  use  of  school  buildings  which  went 
to  the  third  reading  of  the  Republican  platform  of  Wisconsin. 
It  was  finally  cut  out,  not  because  it  was  not  approved  but  only 
because  it  would  help  to  make  the  platform  too  detailed. 

However,  the  coming  session  of  the  Wisconsin  legislature  will 
probably  enact  into  law  the  right  of  the  people  in  any  commu- 
nity to  the  free  and  gratuitous  use  of  their  public  school  build- 
ing as  a  meeting  place  for  the  free  discussion  of  public  ques- 
tions, the  right  of  such  neighborhood  civic  associations  as  may 
be  formed  to  meet  in  public  school  buildings  to  call  upon  their 
public  servants  to  report  upon  the  conduct  of  their  office  and 
their  right  to  call  upon  the  representatives  of  public  service  cor- 
porations to  report  upon  the  service  they  are  rendering. 

And  now  grant  that  we  have  this  fundamental  democratic  or- 
ganization of  the  citizens  for  the  use  of  school  buildings  a$ 
neighborhood  civic  club  houses  as  the  foundation,  let  us  con- 
sider some  of  the  other  extended  uses. 

The  Public  School  Building  as  a  Local  Health  Office. 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  summarize  in  any  form  that  will  show 
its  importance  the  paper  that  was  written  by  Dr.  George  W. 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  363 

Goler,  Health  Officer  of  Rochester,  and  the  man  whom  Dr. 
Woods  Hutcliinson  selected  as  the  best  qualified  to  write  upon 
this  subject. 

He  outlines  the  whole  system  of  protecting  the  health  of  the 

city,  using  the  school  plants  as  local  bases,  each  with  its  medical 

inspector  and  district  physician.     Each  with  its 

Schools  as  school  dentist,  with  its  municipal  dental  equip- 

Health  Offices 

ment  and  each  with  its  visiting  nurse  at  the 

service  of  the  community.  He  says,  after  giving  in  detail  the 
whole  plan :  "  The  scheme  here  outlined  may  appear  at  first  sight 
to  be  both  elaborate  and  expensive.  The  cost  of  a  plan  having 
for  its  object  prevention  of  sickness,  amelioration  of  suffering, 
promotion  of  happiness,  must  be  balanced  against  the  cost  of 
sickness,  suffering,  widowhood,  and  preventable  death  and  the 
dip  of  the  balance  is  far  on  the  side  of  prevention.  In  most  great 
cities,  the  framework  of  a  large  part  of  the  plan  has  already 
been  perfected.  It  only  remains  for  the  activities  we  have  to 
be  joined  together  into  a  perfected  whole. 

He  bases  his  whole  argument  on  efficiency  and  economy. 
'"  Let  us  do  these  things  now,  and  later  let  us  do  more  of  the 
same  kind  of  preventive  work,  not  only  because  of  our  greater 
sympathy  or  our  larger  humanitarianism,  but  also  because  it  is 
economically  more  valuable  to  promote  health  than  it  is  to  nurse 
the  sick." 

The  Public  School  Building  as  a  Branch  Public  Library. 
"  Make  a  branch  library  of  each  one  of  the  public  schools, 
^ut  a  trained  librarian  in  each  branch  to  care  for  the  books  and 
to  make  the  branch  attractive  and  useful.    We 
c  oo  s  as  jiave  a  ^  investment  in  the  central  library  and 

a  big  investment  in  the  schools,  and  neither  the 
library  nor  the  schools  are  working  at  their  full  capacity.  There 
are  sixty  school  buildings  in  this  city  and  we  want  sixty  branch 
public  libraries."  This  was  the  statement  of  policy  of  the  newly- 
appointed  librarian,  Mr.  Charles,  McLenigan,  of  the  splendid 
Milwaukee  Public  Library. 

Miss  L.  E.  Stearns,  perhaps  the  leading  exponent  of  library 
distribution  in  the  country,  writes :  "  experience  has  shown  that, 
where  no  efforts  are  made  along  the  lines  of  library  extension, 


364      REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

only  ten  per  cent,  or  at  the  very  most,  twenty  per  cent  of  the 
people  in  every  community  are  reached.  If  we  wish  to  have 
wholesome  literature  become  the  burden  of  the  common  thought, 
we  must  place  good  books  within  easy  reach  of  all.  The  social 
center  offers  a  most  excellent  opportunity." 

The  Public  School  Building  as  a  Free  Lecture  Center. 

Twenty-one  years  has  placed  the  great  public  lecture  system, 
developed  in  New  York  City  under  Dr.  Henry  M.  Leipziger,  be- 
yond the  experimental  stage.  I  quote  just  » 
Free  Lecture  paragraph  and  a  summary  of  results  from  his 
contribution  to  this  report.  "  Public  lectures 
to  adults  in  the  schools  bring  the  very  best  teachers  in  the  univer- 
sities and  the  very  best  scholars  in  every  field  to  engage  in  the 
work  of  public  teaching,  for  the  lecturers  include  college  presi- 
dents, professors,  teachers,  scholars,  artists,  physicians,  trav- 
elers, musicians,  etc.,  making  a  company  representing  all  the 
phases  of  intellectual  life,  held  together  by  a  common  purpose. 
The  underlying  principle  of  this  scheme  is  that  education  must 
be  unending." 

In  summary,  the  results  attained  in  these  lectures  of  which 
more  than  five  thousand  were  given  last  season  are,  (a)  con- 
tinuation of  systematic  study,  (b)  Americanization  of  immi- 
grants, (c)  improvement  of  sanitation  and  health,  (d)  increased 
interest  in  the  New  York  City  government,  (e)  the  formation 
of  forums  for  discussion  of  social  and  economic  questions,  (f) 
greater  efficiency  and  earning  power,  (g)  appreciation  of  the 
city's  resources,  (h)  improved  reading  taste  of  the  public,  (i) 
wider  and  larger  interests  in  the  finer  things  of  life. 

The  use  of  the  school  buildings  as  lecture  centers  is  quite  com- 
mon, but  nowhere  else  is  it  so  well  organized  as  in  New  York. 

The  School  Building  as  a  Recreation  Center. 
Dr.  Edward  W.  Stitt,  district  superintendent  of  schools  in  New 
York  City,  contributes  a  detailed  and  comprehensive  article  upon 

the  use  of  school  buildings  as  recreation  centers, 
Recreation  i    f  f  •  .•  •,- 

c    ,  including  an  account  of  gymnasium  activities, 

games,  baths,  and  reading  rooms,  musical,  lit- 
erary and  other  clubs. 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  365 

We  cannot  go  into  detail  in  this  summary,  but  let  me  point  out 
the  fact  that  the  vice  of  the  city,  in  which  is  rooted  the  corruption, 
finds  its  motive  in  the  desire  for  recreation.  The  attempt  to 
dam  up  the  evil  stream  of  commercialized  recreation  is  futile 
unless  there  is  provided  an  opportunity  for  an  expression  of  the 
recreational  desire  in  wholesome  ways. 

The  Public  School  Building  as  a  Moving  Picture  Theatre. 

This  paper,  prepared  by  Mr.  John  Collier,  the  executive  sec- 
retary of  the  National  Board  of  Censorship  of  Moving  Picture 
Films,  is  another  which  ought  not  to  be  cut.  Mr.  Collier  surveys 
the  marevlous  growth  of  the  motion  picture  world,  "  which  has 
turned  the  American  masses  into  theatre-goers  and  carried  the 
richness  and  stimulation  of  theatres  into  mil- 
Moving  Pictures  Hons  of  Hves>  not  hitherto  touched  by  the 

dramatic  appeal."  He  gives  the  figures — ten  thousand  picture 
show  houses  in  the  United  States.  Four  million  the  daily  average 
attendance,  while  all  other  American  theatres  have  no  more  than 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  He  then  takes  up  (i)  mo- 
tion pictures  in  the  school  curriculum,  (2)  motion  pictures  in 
school  extension,  and  (3)  motion  pictures  in  the  school  budget. 

"  Has  not  the  time  now  come,"  he  asks,  "  when  the  community, 
in  the  school,  endowed  with  a  conscious  public  ideal  which  the 
commercial  show  house  cannot  possess,  may  be  justly  expected 
to  equip  itself  with  that  powerful  magnet  which  has  given  to  the 
commercial  show  its  great  advantage? 

He  shows,  not  only  the  immediate  benefit  to  the  people  who 
see  the  pictures,  but  the  wider  beneficial  effect  upon  the  whole 
motion  picture  world  of  using  the  school  buildings  as  moving 
picture  theatres. 

This  plan  has  been  tried  in  one  or  two  cities,  and  it  is  probable 
that,  during  the  coming  season,  we  shall  have  a  beginning  made 
upon  a  state-wide  scale  in  the  establishment  of  an  educational 
film  exchange. 

The  School  Building  as  a  Center  for  Holiday  and  Festival 
Celebration. 

E.  S.  Martin,  the  superintendent  of  public  recreation  of  Co- 


366      REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

lumbus,  Ohio,  who  was  chairman  of  the  committee  on  festival 
celebration  of  the  Playground  Association  of  America,  contributes 
a  paper  in  which  he  says,  "  In  the  early  days 
lays  and  of  the  Repubiic>  when  the  population  was  pre- 
dominantly rural  and  fairly  homogeneous  in  re- 
spect to  race,  religion  and  tradition,  the  festival  served  to  bring, 
people  together  and  produced  a  spirit  of  geniality  and  good 
feeling  that  did  much  to  wipe  out  past  differences  and  unify 
public  opinion.  To-day  a  very  much  changed  condition  of  affairs 
confronts  us;  practically  every  race,  nationality  and  religion  in 
the  world  is  represented  in  the  American  Republic,  with  the  re- 
sult that  class  distinction  has  been  raised  up,  which  was  unknown 
at  the  dawn  of  our  national  history.  The  fact  that  the  festivals 
are  observed  by  each  social  class  in  its  own  peculiar  way,  tends 
to  fix  the  lines  of  social  cleavage  by  strengthening  the  class  con- 
sciousness ;  and  anything  that  tends  to  the  establishment  of  rigid 
class  lines  shakes  the  foundation  of  democracy. 

"  In  a  country  where  the  elements  of  the  population  are  as 
heterogeneous  as  they  are  in  the  United  States,  it  may  be  ex- 
pected that  class  barriers  will  tend  to  become  more  and  more 
marked,  unless  counteractive  agencies  are  set  to  work  to  dis- 
solve them. 

"  In  the  school  extension  idea  we  have  just  such  an  agency. 
And  the  arguments  that  justify  the  expansion  of  public  activities 
in  recreation  and  education  apply  with  especial  force  to  the  utili- 
zation of  public  school  property  in  the  celebration  of  national 
holidays.  The  taxpayer  is  beginning  to  realize  that  he  is  not 
getting  full  returns  for  money  invested  when  he  permits  school 
buildings  to  deteriorate  with  the  years,  while  standing  unused  the 
greater  part  of  the  time.  With  the  school  buildings  open  on 
holidays,  when  many  stores  and  factories  are  closed,  an  excellent 
opportunity  is  presented  to  bring  people  together  under  conditions 
where  a  sense  of  common  proprietorship  opens  the  way  for 
further  common  activities.  In  this  way  it  is  possible  to  school  the 
people  in  the  practice  of  democracy,  so  that  a  welding  of  the 
various  elements  results  and  a  solidarity  is  given  to  the  social 
body  which  it  would  be  impossible  otherwise  to  accomplish. 

"  The  taxpayer  is  usually  a  part  of  the  separate  organization 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  367 

attempting  to  celebrate  some  festal  occasion  which  it  believes 
should  receive  recognition,  therefore  it  is  advisable  that  the  school 
buildings  should  be  utilized,  first  in  the  preparation  of  the  neigh- 
borhood for  the  particular  celebration,  and  second,  as  a  place 
to  carry  out  the  program  when  deemed  advisable.  Such  a  use 
made  of  the  school  plant  would  bring  all  social  classes  closer 
together.  At  present,  New  Year's  day  is  comparatively  little 
celebrated.  Washington's  and  Lincoln's  birthdays  are  celebrated 
in  our  public  schools,  if  the  authorities  permit.  Arbor  day  should 
be  utilized  to  teach  not  only  children,  but  adults,  the  great  lessons 
of  nature  that  they  may  be  applied  in  every-day  life." 

He  then  gives  in  detail  a  suggestion  of  the  method  by  which 
New  Year's,  Washington's  and  Lincoln's  birthdays,  May-day, 
Decoration  Day,  Flag  Day,  Columbus  Day,  Thanksgiving  and 
other  holidays,  may  be  made  more  valuable  in  civic  education, 
through  their  organized  and  systematic  celebration  in  the  var- 
ious neighborhoods  with  the  school  building  as  a  center. 

"  Of  the  '  sane  Fourth  '  movement,"  Mr.  Martin  says,  "  as 
chairman  of  the  committee  on  festivals,  I  found  one  of  the  prob- 
lems of  many  cities  to  be  '  how  shall  we  bridge 
lourth  the  gap  between  the  close  of  school  and  July 
4th?'  The  use  of  the  school  plant  with  leaders  from  the  neigh- 
borhoods keeping  the  children  interested  and  rehearsing  after 
the  close  of  the  school  season,  will  bridge  this  gap." 

He  then  points  out  that  even  "  Hallowe'en  might  be  made  con- 
structive as  a  festival  instead  of  destructive,  if  the  school  build- 
ing were  open  for  directed  activities  suitable  for  the  boys  to  give 
vent  to  the  feelings  which  the  day  suggests." 

Social  Centers  in  the  Country. 

Charles  W.  Holman,  editor  of  Farm  and  Ranch,  of  Dallas, 
Texas,  has  spent  some  months  in  a  study  upon  the  extension 
of  the  equipment  and  use  of  school  plants  in  rural  communities, 
especially  in  the  southwest.  In  the  preparation  of  his  contribu- 
tion on  this  subject,  Mr.  Holman  has  written  several  hundred 
letters  to  schoolmen,  from  which  responses  have  been  uniformly 
strongly  favorable  to  the  school  extension  movement.  He  quotes 
a  number  of  these  letters  in  his  report. 


368     REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

I  had  thought  to  give  here  a  summary  of  Mr.  Clarence  A. 
Perry's  splendid  paper  on  the  actual  developments  of  school 
extension  throughout  the  country,  but  Mr.  Perry  is  here. 

But  before  Mr.  Perry  speaks  on  the  actual  existing  develop- 
ment, the  progress  of  the  general  movement,  let  me  give  a  brief 
summary  of  several  studies  of  the  relation  of  the  school  plant  in 
its  wider  use,  that  is,  the  social  center,  to  existing  institutions. 

The  Relation  of  the  Social  Center  to  the  Regular  School. 

Edward  C.  Elliott,  Professor  of  Education  in  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  treats  the  whole  subject  from  the  viewpoint  of  the 
regular  day  school.  He  says,  "  There  is  not  in  the  country  to-day 
a  city  or  rural  school  whose  nominative  functions  would  not  be 
better  performed  (with  the  social  center  developed),  if  for  no 
other  reason  than  through  the  increased  material  equipment 
which  the  socialized  school  will  have." 

A  summary  of  the  statements  from  the  principles  of  two  gram- 
mar schools  in  which  social  centers  have  been  maintained,  gives 
the  effect  upon  the  day  school  children  as :  First,  "  The  fitting  of 
the  building  with  gymnasium  apparatus,  stereopticon  lantern  and 
other  equipment  incidental  to  use  as  a  social  center,  adds  equip- 
ment which  may  be  used  for  the  day  school."  Second,  "  The 
effect  upon  the  children,  especially  the  boys  in  the  school,  of  hav- 
ing the  men  and  the  young  men  and  the  older  boys,  to  whom  they 
naturally  look  as  examples,  spending  their  evenings  in  the  school 
building  is  perceptably  good."  Third,  "  The  use  of  the  school 
buildings  as  a  community  gathering  place  tends  to  develop  in 
the  minds  of  the  school  children  the  idea  that  school  attend- 
ance is  not  a  hardship." 

The  Relation  between  the  Social  Center  and  the  University. 

Professor  Lewis  J.  Reber,  Dean  of  the  extension  division  of 

the  University  of  Wisconsin,  writes,  "  the  new  movement  for 

using  the  school  buildings  for  social,  civic  and 

ncational  educational  centers  for  all  their  people  seems  to 

Relations  ..... 

offer  the  largest  opportunity  for  the  university 

to  come  into  vital  relationship  to  the  people  of  the  state."     He 
presents  the  various  ways  in  which  the  resources  of  the  state 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  369 

university  may  be  developed  through  the  gathering  of  the  people 
in  democratic  groups. 

The  Relation  of  the  Wider  Use  of  the  Social  Center  to  the  Home, 

Some  time  age,  there  appeared,  I  think  in  one  of  the  Buffalo 
papers,  an  interview  from  somebody  who  said  that  the  true  social 
center  was  the  home  and  he  decried  the  extension  of  the  use 
of  the  school  plant  as  a  neighborhood  gathering  place,  because  it 
would  tend  to  rob  the  home.  Mrs.  Edwin  C.  Grice,  President  of 
the  Home  and  School  Association  of  Philadelphia,  in  a  paper 
contributed  to  this  report,  shows  how  the  extension  of  the  social 
and  civic  uses  of  the  school  plant  tends  to  unify  and  enrich  the 
home  life,  by  providing  in  the  vicinity  the  common  recreation 
place,  the  common  thought  awakening  place  of  the  whole  family. 

The  Relation  of  the  Social  Center  to  the  Church. 

Rev.  Richard  Edwards,  University  Pastor  of  the  Congrega- 
tional Church  in  Wisconsin  makes  a  careful  study  of  the  various 
effects  of  the  social  center  upon  the  church,  and  summarizes  in 
this  way :  "  The  social  center  movement  gives  promise  of  being 
the  long-sought  substitute  for  the  saloon.  If  it  becomes  so,  it 
will  help  the  churches.  It  gives  promise  of  elevating  the  general 
moral  tone.  If  it  does  so,  it  will  help  the  churches.  It  gives 
promise  of  aiding  greatly  in  the  formation  of  intelligent  public 
opinion  and  elevating  the  standards  of  public  conscience.  If  it 
does  so,  it  will  help  the  churches.  It  gives  promise  of  breaking 
down  "  class  "  and  racial  and  religious  prejudices.  If  it  does  so, 
it  will  help  to  make  the  brotherhood  of  man  seem  as  real  as  it  is. 
This  will  help  the  churches.  It  gives  promise  of  rescuing  many 
people  from  the  clutches  of  tainted  commercialized  forms  of 
amusements.  If  it  does  so,  it  will  help  the  churches. 

"  It  is  unthinkable  that  the  churches  should  oppose  the  social 
center  movement.  Opposition  by  any  church  would  but  reveal 
its  own  narrow,  bigoted,  anti-social  attitude." 

The  Relation  of  the  Social  Center  to  the  Settlement. 

There  is  perhaps  no  more  unfortunate  confusion  in  terms  than 
that  between  the  social  or  school  center  and  the  social  settlement. 


370      REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

Possibly  it  would  have  been  better  in  the  beginning  to  use  th« 
term  neighborhood  center  or  school  center  as  Ray  Stannard  Baker 
does. 

Mr.  Robert  A.  Woods,  of  South  End  House,  Boston,  in  an 
article  upon  the  relation  between  the  settlement  and  the  center, 
says,  "  the  settlement  has  been  considered  by  its  residents  to  a 
considerable  extent  as  an  experiment  station,  whose  established 
results  in  well-organized  forms  of  popular  education  and  recrea- 
tion should,  as  soon  as  possible,  be  turned  over  to  the  public 
school  system.  The  attainment  of  this  stage  for  any  experiment 
is  regarded  as  its  apotheosis.  It  then  spreads  quickly  throughout 
the  city  and  from  city  to  city.  It  then  comes  into  a  democratic 
phase,  such  as  it  can  never  have  in  the  most  democratic  settle- 
ment." Mr.  Woods,  who  is  not  only  a  settlement  worker  but 
also  a  leader  of  civic  activity  in  New  England,  gives  much  wise 
counsel  regarding  the  method  of  school  extension. 

Miss  Jane  Addams,  of  Hull  House,  is  perhaps  more  than  any 
other  one  person  responsible  for  the  beginning  which  Chicago  is 
making  this  year  in  school  extension. 

The  Relation  of  Special  Centers  to  Progressive  Movements. 

Professor  George  M.  Forbes,  President  of  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation of  Rochester  and  President  also  of  the  New  York  State 
Teacher's  Association,  writes,  "  You  who  have  not  witnessed 
it  cannot  understand  how  party  spirit,  class  spirit  and  even  race 
spirit  fade  out  in  the  intense  civic  and  community  atmosphere 
of  these  neighborhood  civic  clubs.  It  is  pure  democracy  getting 
an  opportunity  to  inform  itself,  working  itself  free  from  preju- 
dice and  narrowness  by  absolutely  free  and  unrestricted  discus- 
sion of  any  question  and  eager  to  apply  its  new-found  spirit  of 
brotherhood  to  the  development  and  extension  of  community  en- 
terprise. Political  liberty  alone,  even  when  it  finds  expression  in 
universal  suffrage,  cannot  solve  the  problem  of  democracy.  The 
only  salvation  of  democracy  is  in  the  development  of  the  com- 
munity spirit.  This  spirit  is  latent  in  every  man.  It  only  needs 
its  appropriate  stimulus  to  arouse  it,  the  appropriate  soil  and  at- 
mosphere in  which  it  may  grow.  Our  democracy  has  yet  to 
develop  institutions  which  are  generally  communal  in  the  sense 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  371 

that  they  appeal  to  and  develop  the  objective,  the  communal  in- 
terests, that  is,  reveal  the  joy  and  satisfaction  which  come  from 
co-operative  effort  for  the  common  good;  in  short,  institutions 
which  break  down  the  spirit  and  result  of  exclusiveness  and  bring 
the  recognition  of  man  as  man,  now  the  social  center  seems  to  be 
exactly  the  appropriate  stimulus  and  soil  to  develop  this  civic 
spirit." 

Professor  Forbes  then  points  out  how  this  development  tends 
to  facilitate  the  movements  for  the  establishment  of  play  grounds 
and  other  movements  for  reform,  for  improvements  in  the  es- 
tablished order. 

Difficulties  to  be  Overcome  before  Social  Centers  are  Established. 

Mr.  Charles  E.  Knowles,  formerly  secretary  of  the  Buffalo 
Social  Center  Association,  was  asked  to  contribute  a  paper  upon 
the  difficulties  to  be  overcome  before  social  centers  are  estab- 
lished, because  the  movement  in  Buffalo  seems  to  have  met  more 
difficulties  than  that  in  any  other  city  in  the  country.  Mr. 
Knowles  in  his  article  points  out  the  opposition  of  which  Ray 
Stannard  Baker  speaks,  in  telling  the  story  of  the  movement  in 
Rochester,  in  the  September,  1910,  American  Magazine.  He 
also  points  to  the  desirability  of  having  a  plain  statement  in  the 
city  charter  as  to  the  right  of  the  people  to  the  free  and  gratuitous 
use  of  school  plants  for  social  and  civic  activities. 

The  report  includes  a  set  of  rules  for  school  extension  which 
have  been  adopted  in  two  cities  already  and  which  have  met  with 
the  approval  of  the  majority  of  the  committee. 

Bibliography:  An  extended,  carefully-prepared  bibliography 
is  included  in  the  complete  report. 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 

UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  DIVISION, 

DEPARTMENT  OF  DEBATING  AND  PUBLIC  DISCUSSION. 

SOCIAL  AND  Civic  CENTERS. 

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70:  683-96,  September,  1910. 
Baxter,    Sylvester.     Widening   the    Use    of    the    Public    School    House. 

World's  Work,  5:  3247-8,  March,  1903. 


372      REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 


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1502-4,  February,  1908. 
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1910. 
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September,  1905. 
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League  Bulletin,  September  I,  1909. 
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1908. 

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1910. 
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United  States).    The  Widening  Sphere  of  Public  Education,  pp.  559- 

81.    The  School  and  Society,  pp.  528-595. 

Edgerton,  Hiram  H.    The  Playground  and  its  Place  in  the  Administra- 
tion of  a  City.     Playground  Extension  Leaflet,  No.  59,   Playground 

Association  of  America,  i  Madison  Ave.,  New  York  City. 
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1909. 
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America,  i  Madison  Ave.,  New  York  City. 
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1909. 

Grice,  Mrs.  Mary  Van  Meter.    Home  and  School. 

Hall,  G.  Stanley.     Some  Social  Aspects  of  Education.     Educational  Re- 
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Events,  August,  1909. 
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(Dallas,  Texas),  March  10,  March  26,  April  9,  1910. 
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March  26,  1904. 
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Weekly,  2 :  8,  9,  June  12,  1909. 
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5 :  3327-33,  April,  1903. 
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Academy,  35 :  345-9,  March,  1910. 
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ter Social  Centers  and  Civic  Clubs. 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  373 

Mann,  William  Justin.  Wider  Use  of  the  School-House.  The  Boston 
Common,  1 :  17,  18,  September  24,  1910. 

Manny,  F.  A.  Social  Center  in  a  Swiss  Village.  Charities,  18:  437,  438, 
July  20,  1907. 

Milwaukee  Journal.    Open  School  Halls.     May  27,  1910. 

.    Utilizing  Our  Schools.    June  23,  1910. 

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Metropolitan  Tower,  Madison  Ave.,  New  York  City,  N.  Y. 

.    The    Progress    of   the    Wider   Use    Movement.     The    Common 

Ground,  i :  623,  June,  1910. 

Perry,  Clarence  Arthur  (in  his  Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant,  Chap- 
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tober, 1902. 

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Weekly,  2 :  7,  July  9,  1910. 

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Sociology,  ii :  655-662,  March,  1906. 

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munity. 12 :  3-5,  November,  1008. 

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5,  1909- 

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June,  1910. 

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January,  1896. 

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Academy  of  Political  Science,  23 :  457-63,  May,  1904. 

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.  Rochester  Social  Centers.  Proceedings  of  Third  Annual  Con- 
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374     REPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  EXTENSION  COMMITTEE 

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of  Manhattan. 

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.    The  Use  of  School  Roof-Gardens  and  Baths  in  New  York  City. 

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School  Teacher,  8:  113,  November,  1907. 

Mowry,  Duane.  Use  of  School  Buildings  for  Other  than  School  Pur- 
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Pictorial  Review,  November,  1910. 


The  Education  of  Foreigners  in 
American  Citizenship. 

By  MISS  GRACE  ABBOTT,  CHICAGO, 
Director  League  for  Protection  of  Immigrants. 

The  importance  of  the  task  of  preparing  for  American  citi- 
zenship our  yearly  additions  of  foreigners  is  little  appreciated  by 
the  American  public.  In  Chicago  we  have  something  like  thirty- 
six  nationalities  represented  in  our  population,  and  Chicago's 
population  is  not  more  complex  than  that  of  most  American 
cities.  More  than  two-thirds  of  its  people  are  either  "  foreign 
born  "  or  "  native  born  of  foreign  parentage,"  and  the  remaining 
one-third  is  attempting  to  make  the  necessary  adjustments  among 
these  thirty-six  groups  and  at  the  same  time  to  bring  them  all 
under  a  dominating  American  influence.  If  one  were  to  ask  the 
average  American  how  these  people  are  initiated  into  our  social, 
industrial  and  political  life  he  would  probably  tell  you  either  that 
it  was  not  accomplished  at  all  and  that  we  ought  to  keep  out 
"  these  hordes  of  Europeans  " ;  or  else  he  would  say  that  he  knew 
nothing  of  the  process,  but  it  was  being  done.  He  was  sure  it 
was,  because  look  at  this,  that  or  the  other  great  and  distinguished 
American  who  had  come  to  the  country  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
ago  with  no  assets  except  his  own  courage  and  thrift  and  was 
now  a  great  power  for  good  in  the  community.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  both  these  points  of  view  are  in  a  certain  sense  right.  We 
are  absorbing  the  immigrant  into  our  national  life,  but  the  ques- 
tion is,  are  we  doing  it  intelligently  and  economically  or  with  a 
recklessly  extravagant  disregard  for  the  men  and  women  who 
are  lost  in  the  process. 

As  a  community  we  are  relying  upon  the  public  schools  to  ac- 
complish this  work  of  Americanization  in  the  belief  that  if  the 
children  are  properly  trained  the  future  will  take  care  of  itself, 
for  the  parents  are  only  a  one-generation  difficulty  anyway. 
While  this  disregard  of  the  possible  usefulness  or  danger  in  the 
thousands  of  men  and  women  who  come  to  us  every  year  re- 

(375) 


suits  in  great  loss  to  the  community,  the  assumption  which  seems 
to  justify  it  is  unwarranted,  for  the  immigrant  child  cannot  b« 
properly  trained  in  American  citizenship  if  nothing  is  done  for 
his  parents. 

Apparently  our  settled  policy  in  the  treatment  of  our  foreign 
population  is  to  ignore  the  fact  that  they  are  foreign.  As  though 
by  pretending  that  the  Italian's  social,  industrial 
Ignoring  Facts  and  poiitjcai  traditions  are  the  same  as  ours 
they  will,  by  some  miracle,  become  so.  This  has  been  the  great 
American  faith-cure  treatment  for  the  difficulties  which  come 
from  our  complex  population,  the  results  of  which  have  not 
always  justified  the  faith. 

In  the  case  of  the  children  we  have  probably  incorrectly  as- 
sumed that  the  training  which  the  immigrant  child  needs  is  the 
same  as  the  training  which  the  American  born  child  should  have. 
Under  the  present  system  American  habits  of  dress,  speech,  and 
manners  are  very  rapidly  acquired,  and  in  the  narrow  field 
of  teaching  reading,  writing  and  arithmetic  the  schools  have 
probably  met  the  expectations  of  the  public.  But  this  equipment 
is  not  proving  an  adequate  protection  for  the  immigrant  child 
against  the  temptations  which  he  has  to  meet.  Although  the 
percentage  of  crime  is  smaller  among  our  foreign-born  citizens 
than  among  the  native-born  Americans,  the  records  of  the  juve- 
nile court  show  that  more  than  three-fourths  of  the  children 
brought  into  court  are  of  foreign  parentage.  These  children 
have  not  of  course  committed  "  crimes  "  in  most  cases.  Any  man 
whose  boyhood  included  the  larks  usual  to  that  age  would  be  apt 
to  conclude,  after  reading  over  the  Illinois  or  Colorado  definition 
of  delinquency,  that  it  was  just  as  well  there  were  no  juvenile 
courts  when  he  was  a  boy  for  he  would  have  been  the  despair  of 
judge  and  probation  officer.  But  this  would  not,  of  course,  have 
been  the  case.  The  American  father  or  mother  whose  child  com- 
mits these  small  violations  of  the  law,  understanding  the  situ- 
ation, is  able  by  the  substitution  of  a  new  and  wholesome  interest 
for  the  dangerous  one  to  prevent  the  commission  of  more  serious 
offences.  But  the  immigrant  parent  finds  this  extremely  difficult 
to  do.  His  children,  because  of  the  rapid  strides  they  have  made 
in  the  public  schools,  have  become  the  interpreters  of  America 


MISS  GRACE  ABBOTT  377 

to  him.     Many  things  which  the  old-world   father  or  mother 
frowns  on  "  all  the  kids  do  here  " — a  statement  sometimes  cor- 
rect and  at  other  times  dangerously  incorrect. 

S^?1^,;,  The  American  mother  who  has  found  herself 
Child's  Children  .,  .  .  , 

quite  helpless  before  a  similar  argument  which 

clearly  indicated  that  the  girl  or  boy  thought  her  standards  old- 
fashioned,  can  appreciate  in  some  measure  the  difficulty  of  the 
Italian  or  Polish  parents.  For  them  it  is  much  intensified  by  their 
peculiar  dependence  upon  their  children.  They  speak  to  the  boss, 
the  landlord,  the  policeman — all  the  great  in  their  world — through 
their  children.  In  such  a  family  the  oldest  child  usually  refers 
to  the  children  as  "  mine  ".  "  My  fader's  gotter  get  work  because 
my  Charlie  haint  got  no  shoes,"  he  explains  as  the  reason  for 
making  an  appeal  to  you  for  advice  as  to  where  his  father's  ser- 
vices may  find  a  market.  And  when  this  boy  or  girl  after  going 
to  work  is  able,  because  of  his  knowledge  of  English  and  famil- 
iarity with  certain  American  customs,  to  earn  more  than  the 
father,  family  relationships  are  completely  reversed.  When  such 
a  child  becomes  tired  of  the  burden  of  responsibility  which  he 
has  so  early  assumed  and  makes  a  few  gay  excursions  with  his 
gang,  his  father's  word  of  warning  is  little  heeded  and  so  the  as- 
sistance of  the  judge  of  the  juvenile  court  and  the  probation 
officer  are  necessary  to  convince  him  that  the  sport  he  is  having 
at  the  expense  of  the  man  who  keeps  the  neighboring  fruit-stand 
is  a  dangerous  kind  of  sport  for  him.  What  is  really  needed  is 
a  re-establishment  of  the  parents  in  the  eyes  of  the  immigrant 
child.  Our  juvenile  court  judges  and  probation  officers  are  trying 
to  do  this,  but  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world  we  are  usually 
widening  the  gap  between  the  parent  and  the  child  by  the  policy 
we  are  following  in  our  public  schools.  In  our  zeal  to  teach  pa- 
triotism we  are  often  teaching  disrespect  for  the  history  and  tra- 
ditions which  the  immigrant  parent  had  a  part  in  making  and  so 
for  the  parent  himself.  Some  teachers,  with  a  quick  appreciation 
of  the  difficulty  the  family  is  meeting  in  the  sudden  change  of 
national  heroes  and  standards,  are  able  to  avoid  mistakes  of  this 
sort  by  making  it  clear  that  the  story  of  the  struggle  for  Italian 
nationalism  is  a  thrilling  one  to  us  and  that  Bohemian  leaders, 
because  of  their  long  fight  for  religious  liberty,  are  heroes  to 


378         EDUCATION  OF  FOREIGNERS  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

Americans.  A  little  Greek  boy  who  is  a  friend  of  mine  ex- 
plained, "  My  teacher  likes  me  because  I  tell  her  stories  of  the 
Athens."  Whether  Miss  O'Grady  really  cared  for  the  stories  he 
told  of  the  city  from  which  so  few  of  our  Greek  immigrants 
come  and  yet  whose  history  and  traditions  are  so  intimately  loved 
by  them  all  I  cannot  say.  But  I  do  know  that  both  the  school  and 
Athens  occupied  a  different  place  in  the  eyes  of  the  boy  because 
of  the  seeming  interest  of  the  teacher.  Such  results  should  not 
be  left  to  the  casual  interest  of  the  teacher.  In  every  foreign 
neighborhood  the  transition  from  the  old  to  the  new  world 
heroes  and  ideals  should  be  very  carefully  worked  out  or  else 
the  change  will  result  disastrously  for  either  the  parent  or  the 
child. 

Respect  for  the  father's  work  ought  also  to  be  taught.  In  one 
part  of  Chicago,  which  is  known  as  Grand  Crossing,  the  life  of 
the  neighborhood  centers  in  the  elevation  of  the 
Dignifying  wor*  network  of  railroad  tracks  which  cross  there  in 
entering  the  city.  A  very  intelligent  superintendent  of  this  dis- 
trict made  this  undertaking  the  basis  of  a  very  large  part  of  the 
regular  school  work.  The  children  make  models  in  wood  and  clay 
and  paper  of  the  completed  work  and  of  the  machinery  and  tools 
which  were  used.  Little  essays  explained  the  need  of  the  work 
and  who  was  responsible  for  its  being  undertaken.  All  of  this  was 
in  accordance  with  the  soundest  pedagogical  principles  since  "all 
school  training  must  adapt  itself  to  the  background  of  life  which 
the  children  live,"  but  equally  important,  it  was  giving  to  the 
children  a  new  respect  for  the  work  their  fathers  did,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  that  in  the  minds  of  the  men  themselves  what  had  been 
merely  a  means  of  livelihood  became  in  a  way  a  public  service. 
This  same  superintendent  worked  out  a  complete  course  in  muni- 
cipal government  which  was  to  be  taught  in  the  "  hand  work  " 
and  supplementary  reading  and  writing  from  the  kindergarten  to 
the  high  school.  With  shears,  clay,  wood  and  pencil  these  chil- 
dren told  the  story  of  Chicago's  police,  fire  and  health  depart- 
ment. They  planned  parks  and  public  buildings  and  found  it 
much  more  exciting  than  the  study  of  the  nesting  habits  of  the 
oriole  in  Central  America. 

But  however  well  the  children  may  be  taught,  however  in- 


MISS  GRACE  ABBOTT  379 

:geniously  we  may  try  to  reach  the  parent  through  the  child,  we 
will  fail  in  our  ultimate  purpose  of  making  the  best  possible  citi- 
zens of  the  children  unless  the  community  concerns  itself  actively 
in  the  education  of  the  adult  immigrant. 

The  great  majority  of  the  people  who  come  to  us  from  Europe 
are  young  people  between  fifteen  and  thirty  years  of  age.  All 
of  them  know  something  of  industrial  conditions  in  America — 
that  is  a  reason  for  their  coming.  But  of  labor  laws  designed  for 
their  protection,  of  the  employment  agent  and  his  practices,  of 
possible  markets  for  their  skill,  of  what  is  a  fair  wage  in  America, 
they  know  nothing  at  all.  All  of  them  know  we  have  a  republican 
form  of  government  that,  too,  is  a  reason  for  their  coming. 
Most  of  them  know  something  also  of  the  history  of  the  country 
and  of  the  principles  which  it  has  championed  before  the  world. 
But  of  the  American  political  machinery  by  which  we  attempt 
to  put  into  practice  our  republican  principles  they  know  nothing. 
In  most  cities  all  that  we  are  offering  this  army  of  young  men 
and  women  is  instruction  in  English  in  our  night  schools.  Even 
this  is  often  so  poorly  done  as  to  discourage  all  but  the  most  am- 
bitious or  the  hopelessly  stupid.  One  still  occasionally  finds  large 
classes  of  men  crowded  into  seats  intended  for  children  of  ten  or 
fifteen  years  of  age,  reading  from  a  primer  of  the  "  see  the  cat  on 
the  mat"  variety.  Some  books  whose  words  and  pictures  are 
based  on  the  work  and  life  of  the  men  have  been  published  re- 
cently and  are  making  possible  much  better  instruction  than 
formerly.  Miss  Addams  tells  the  story  of  one  eager  teacher 
who,  feeling  the  need  of  some  connection  between  the  life  of  the 
class*  and  the  teaching  of  English,  prepared  a  series  of  lessons. 
The  class  was  to  begin  with  the  sentence  "  I  get  up  early 
every  morning."  That  in  the  theory  was  to  be  followed  by 
"  I  wash  my  face,"  and  so  on  until  they  had  been  through  the 
regular  morning  routine  as  she  conceived  it.  The  plan  was  ex- 
plained to  the  class,  a  group  of  Italian  girls,  who  could  speak  some 
English  but  could  not  read  or  write.  They  were  all  home 
finishers  of  men's  ready-made  clothes — at  that  time  one  of  the 
sweated  industries  in  Chicago.  The  girls  entered  enthusiastically 
on  the  plan.  They  began  according  to  the  scheme  with  "  I  get 
tip  early  every  morning,"  but  followed  in  concert  with  "  I  sew 


380         EDUCATION  OF  FOREIGNERS  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

pants  all  day."  With  these  girls,  as  with  the  rest  of  us,  the  work 
they  were  doing  seemed  the  important  thing,  and  eating  and 
washing  were  after  all  mere  details,  relegated  to  the  background 
when  it  came  to  a  discussion  of  the  day's  program.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  after  that  the  lessons  given  the  girls  were  based  on 
the  tailoring  trade. 

In  addition  to  the  fact  that  the  teaching  is  often  unscientifically 
done  the  term  is  usually  all  too  short.  In  most  cities  of  the 
United  States  the  instruction  in  English  is  offered  at  the  night 

schools  only  during  the  winter  months.  This  is 
inadequacy  01  ^  rugj1  season  m  many  trades,  and  so  anything 
Instruction  ,._  J .  . 

like  regular  attendance  is  impossible.     Because 

of  the  failure  to  adjust  the  time  of  instruction  with  the  hours  of 
work  in  the  neighborhood,  it  is  sometimes  impossible  for  the 
men  to  really  get  adequate  instruction.  Out  in  South  Chicago, 
where  nearly  all  the  men  are  working  in  the  steel  mills,  on  a  day 
shift  one  week  and  a  night  shift  the  next,  they  missed  every  other 
week  of  the  eighteen  weeks  of  instruction  the  city  was  offering 
them.  Consequently  you  could  not  expect  very  rapid  progress 
to  be  made  in  the  study  of  English  and  yet  this  was  a  neighbor- 
hood in  which,  above  all  others,  an  immediate  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish was  needed.  One  would  almost  have  expected  that  the  man- 
agers of  that  great  industry  would  have  seen  that  a  short  course, 
teaching  the  words  of  warning  and  command  which  are  necessary 
to  prevent  the  horrible  accidents  which  occur  almost  daily  would 
have  been  given.  The  men  cannot  make  the  demand  for  them- 
selves, their  employers  are  not  making  it  for  them,  so  it  must 
become  a  community  demand. 

But  many  Americans  are  not  satisfied  with  the  teaching  of 
English  alone.  They  want  instruction  in  what  they  call  the  fun- 
damental American  principles.  When  I  have  tried  to  discover 
just  what  they  have  in  mind  I  have  usually  found  they  feel  it  would 
be  a  good  thing  to  put  immediately  into  the  immigrant's  hands 
the  story  of  Lincoln  and  Washington,  and  that  patriotic  instruc- 
tion should  be  made  the  basis  of  all  of  their  future  work.  Of 
course  none  of  us  can  read  too  often  the  story  of  these  men  or 
others  who  have  stood  for  great  causes  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  but  the  most  sincere  admirer  of  Lincoln  would  not  con- 


MISS  GRACE  ABBOTT  381 

tend  that  his  utterances  would  serve  as  a  practical  guide  in  the 
election  of  aldermen.  The  fundamental  Americanisms,  I  am  con- 
vinced, cannot  be  taught  by  the  method  of  direct  assault,  so  to 
speak,  and  we  should  not  be  discouraged  at  failures  when  it  is 
used.  Probably  we  would  put  the  principle  of  religious  tolera- 
tion well  along  toward  the  first  of  the  characteristics  which  we 
regard  as  distinctly  American  and  are  especially  anxious  to 
cherish,  but  when  I  think  how  long  it  took  to  Americanize  my 
own  Puritan  ancestors,  judged  by  this  test,  I  hope  no  one  will 
be  discouraged  if  the  Italian  fails  to  learn  it  in  a  course  of  ten 
lessons  in  the  fundamentals. 

Many  Americans,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  regard  as  of  first  im- 
portance a  change  in  the  superficial  habits — the  speech,  dress  and 
housekeeping — of  the  immigrants.    And  yet  no  one  of  us  really 
sees  any  danger  in  the  use  of  black  bread  in- 

Lentary  stead  of  white,  or  in  wearing  a  shawl  instead  of 

Instruction  '.       .      .  .„ 

Required  a   nat-      Americanization   in    these   things   will 

come  rapidly  enough.  What  we  must  do,  if  the 
immigrant  is  to  become  a  desirable  citizen,  is  to  preserve  his 
simple  honesty  and  thrift  and  his  faith  in  America  and  American 
institutions.  As  the  first  step  in  this  process  he  needs  to  know 
almost  immediately  on  his  arrival  the  practices  of  employment 
agents  and  the  remedies  that  are  open  to  him  in  cases  of  abuse; 
the  requirements  for  licenses  in  certain  trades ;  something  of  our 
labor  laws;  something  of  our  sanitary  regulations;  how  he  may 
protect  himself  against  violations  by  his  neighbors  of  the  health 
code;  and  how  he  may  send  home  money  to  his  wife  or  his 
mother.  These  are  the  things  which  the  public  schools  should  be 
giving  the  immigrant  in  his  own  language  by  means  of  illustrated 
lectures.  To  wait  until  the  immigrant  learns  these  things  in  the 
school  of  bitter  experience  is  not  only  to  make  him  suffer  an  un- 
necessary financial  loss  but  his  future  usefulness  is  much  im- 
paired if  he  is  exploited  and  robbed  from  the  moment  of  his  ar- 
rival. Consequently  it  is  important  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
community's  good  that  he  be  given  this  initial  instruction.  Fol- 
lowing this  there  should  be  a  course  in  the  practical  workings  of 
the  American  government  also  in  the  language  of  the  immigrant. 
With  the  sort  of  instruction  in  English  usually  given  the  immi- 


382         EDUCATION  OF  FOREIGNERS  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

grant  and  even  with  the  very  best  instruction  he  is  unable  to  un- 
derstand any  difficult  presentation  of  facts  in  English,  although 
he  may  have  been  here  for  some  years,  and  he  is  therefore  quite 
dependent  upon  his  native  language  in  any  preparation  for  na- 
turalization and  the  responsibility  of  citizenship.  Instruction  can 
be  given  by  means  of  a  "  guide  "  which  contains  all  there  is  to- 
be  known  about  America,  but  he  finds  reading  difficult  and  can  be 
reached  only  by  practical  instruction  in  our  public  schools. 
There  need  be  no  fear  that  the  use  of  another  language  in  any 
way  menaces  the  continued  use  of  the  English  language  in 
America.  There  is  no  danger  that  the  Bohemian  children  in  a 
Bohemian  neighborhood  are  not  going  to  learn  to  talk  English, 
but  there  is  a  very  real  danger  that  those  children  are  not  going 
to  become  the  sort  of  men  and  women  we  want  them  to  unless 
we  do  something  for  their  Bohemian  parents.  The  public  libra- 
ries are  undertaking  to  meet  the  cultural  demands  of  these  groups 
of  foreigners  by  supplying  them  with  books  in  their  own  lan- 
guage. The  public  school  should  become  a  real  educational 
center  for  the  adults  as  well  as  the  children  of  the  neighborhood. 
Then  a  very  different  sort  of  preparation  for  citizenship  would 
be  possible. 

After  they  have  been  trained  in  this  way  the  tests  for  natural- 
ization could  be  made  quite  different.  Bound  by  the  old  theory 
that  the  interpretation  of  the  constitution  is  the  reasonable  test, 
judges  have  not  insisted  upon  much  in  the  way  of  an  examina- 
tion, and  knowing  that  there  has  been  no  adequate  chance  for 
preparation  for  citizenship,  the  public  has  felt  that  this  was  only 
fair.  Respect  for  naturalization  would  be  much  increased  if 
some  sort  of  impressive  ceremony  were  used. 


This  is  the  on'  in  which  Old  World 


pie,  who  are  accustomed  to  dignified  procedure, 
can  be  made  to  feel  that  they  are  entering  upon  a  new  period  in 
their  life.  I  know  several  young  people  now  who  have  been  plan- 
ning and  talking  to  me  for  a  year  and  a  half  about  their  coming 
naturalization  this  winter.  I  feel  somewhat  embarrassed  to  find 
them  anticipate  it  as  a  great  event,  for  I  know  it  will  be  treated  as 
a  trivial  matter  in  the  court  and  there  will  be  no  recognition  on 
the  part  of  the  community  of  the  great  change  in  their  relation 


MISS  GRACE  ABBOTT  383 

to  the  nation.  I  understand  that  in  Rochester  the  citizens  give  a 
dinner  to  the  newly-naturalized  citizens,  and  that  there  are  ad- 
dresses and  responses,  and  a  sort  of  welcome  into  the  community 
of  citizens.  Something  of  this  sort  is  greatly  needed  in  every 
city. 

With  the  immigrant  properly  initiated  into  citizenship,  we 
should  be  able  to  trust  our  good  government  organization  to  see 
that  a  non-partisan  statement  of  the  issues  reaches  him  before  an 
election.  But  the  attitude  of  the  reform  organization  is  very  much 
like  that  of  the  political  party  after  all.  "If  the  German  vote  is 
all  that  is  necessary  in  order  to  swing  this  election,  we  won't  spend 
any  money  on  anybody  but  the  Germans."  Consequently  all  the 
information  which  is  regarded  as  necessary  for  the  American 
voter  if  he  is  going  to  cast  an  intelligent  ballot  is  given  to  the 
German,  but  not  to  the  Italian,  the  Greek,  the  Bohemian  and  the 
Pole. 

When  he  does  attempt  to  do  anything  for  the  foreigner  the 
"  good  citizen  "  is  often  easily  discouraged.  He  is  much  disap- 
pointed and  even  grieved  to  find  that  the  foreign  press  cannot  be 
relied  upon  to  further  the  principles  for  which  he  stands.  From 
his  experience  with  American  papers,  he  was  led  to  believe  that 
newspaper  men  have  been  uninfluenced  by  our  prevailing  com- 
mercialism and  stand  for  the  highest  idealism !  When  the  sugges- 
tion is  made  that  if  the  newspapers  cannot  be  relied  upon,  pamph- 
lets explaining  the  situation  be  mailed  the  foreign  born  as  well  as 
the  native  American  voter  he  wonders  about  the  expense.  So 
these  new  voters  are  left  to  the  same  old  influences  and  the  ward 
bosses  do  not  find  that  it  does  not  pay  to  keep  them  in  line.  If 
this  is  going  to  continue  to  be  our  policy  in  the  future  we  can- 
not expect  these  neighborhoods  to  improve  and  the  community 
will  continue  to  suffer  in  the  future,  as  it  has  done  in  the  past. 
And  because  the  community  is  the  real  loser,  the  careful  train- 
ing which  is  necessary  to  change  the  situation  should  be  under- 
taken by  the  community  in  its  public  schools.  It  may  not  matter 
whether  the  Italian  or  Polish  vote  is  for  or  against  a  particular 
proposition  in  this  election,  but  it  is  important  in  the  long  run 
whether  these  thousands  of  Italians,  Poles,  Bohemians  and  others 
are  given  a  chance  to  ally  themselves  with  the  best  element  in 
the  community. 


384        EDUCATION  OF  FOREIGNERS  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

In  these  days  when  we  are  learning  through  our  study  of 
public  expenditure  the  cost  to  the  city  of  the  things  we  are  leav- 
ing undone  as  well  as  those  we  are  doing,  we  may  hope  that  some 
one  will  be  able  to  estimate  the  cost  to  the  community  of  spending 
neither  time,  thought  nor  money  on  the  question  of  making  Amer- 
icans out  of  the  million  people  who  are  coming  to  us  every  year. 


The  Public  Library  as  a  Factor  in  Civic 
Development. 

By  SAMUEL  H.  RANCK, 
Librarian  Grand  Rapids  Free  Library. 

A  definition  or  two  may  help  to  put  the  speaker  and  his 
hearers  on  common  ground — to  the  advantage  of  both.  By  public 
library  we  should  understand  a  library  that  belongs  to  the  people 

and  is  managed  by  them  through  their  chosen 

Definitions  ,•  Ti  •  Ai  j-       IM 

representatives.    It  is  more  than  a  free  library 

or  a  charitable  institution.  The  first  business  of  a  public  library 
is  to  make  its  constituency  realize  that  the  library  belongs  to 
them;  and  this  is  the  first  and  the  most  important  step  in  mak- 
ing it  a  factor  in  its  community.  Let  me  illustrate  the  feeling 
many  people  have  on  this  matter  of  ownership.  For  a  number 
of  years  a  branch  library  in  Grand  Rapids  was  maintained  in  a 
settlement  house,  but  many  people  in  the  neighborhood  would  not 
come  to  it,  simply  because  it  was  in  a  settlement  house,  which 
was  associated  in  their  minds  with  charity.  A  year  ago  this 
branch  was  moved  to  a  public  school  building  in  the  same  neigh- 
borhood, and  at  once  the  use  of  the  library  more  than  doubled, 
many  persons  coming  to  it  who  would  not  come  before. 

We  need  to  re-define  our  conception  of  a  library,  especially  a 
public  library.  The  newer  conception  is  more  than  an  institu- 
tion for  the  circulation  of  books,  or  in  which  books  and  period- 
icals may  be  read.  It  is  rather  an  institution  for  the  dissemina- 
tion of  ideas,  a  municipal  bureau  of  information,  and  therefore 
it  must  use  other  agencies  than  books  and  periodicals  in  carry- 
ing on  its  work. 

The  word  civic  is  one  toward  which  I  have  always  had  a  feel- 
ing of  prejudice,  for  it  suggests  the  man  from  whom  I  first 
heard  it,  a  former  Congressman  from  the  state  of  Pennsylvania. 
This  most  excellent  gentleman  in  my  early  boyhood  was  con- 
stantly talking  about  "  civic  "  and  "  civics,"  and  somehow  I  asso- 

(385) 


386      THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  IN  CIVIC  DEVELOPMENT 

date  the  word  with  his  habit  of  using  words  more  or  less  high 
sounding.  For  example,  referring  to  a  question  he  had  just 
asked,  he  put  it  in  this  wise :  "  And  I  propound  the  interroga- 
tory with  supereminent  disquietude."  In  this  paper  I  shall  use 
"  civic  "  in  its  largest  sense,  that  is,  relating  to  man  as  a  member 
of  society  rather  than  limiting  it  to  city  or  municipal. 

The  next  most  important  work  of  the  public  library  is  to  get 
hold  of  children  and  to  develop  in  them  a  taste  for  the  reading 
of  good  books  and  the  ability  to  get  ideas  from  the  printed  page — 
an  ability  which  comes  only  through  extended  practice.  The  child 
of  to-day  is  the  citizen  of  to-morrow,  and  when  we  think  of  de- 
velopment we  have  in  mind  to-morrow  rather  than  to-day.  The 
library  in  dealing  with  the  child  is  therefore  preparing  the  way 
for  future  civic  growth.  Now  it  is  a  fact  that  the  average 
school  child  does  not  get  enough  reading  in  his  regular  school 
work,  or  in  his  home,  to  develop  in  him  the  ability  to  get  ideas 
with  ease  from  the  printed  page.  He  often  gets  only  the  ability 
to  say  words.  To  the  extent  that  a  child  fails  in  his  ability  to 
get  ideas  from  print,  he  is  handicapped  in  much  of  his  work 
for  life. 

In  recent  years  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  interview  personally 
a  good  many  boys  and  girls  who  have  left  school  permanently 
by  the  time  they  have  reached  the  eighth  grade  or  before,  with 
reference  to  reading  that  would  enable  them  to  fit  themselves 
better  for  the  work  that  they  were  doing;  and  the  thing  that 
has  impressed  itself  most  in  these  interviews  has  been  the  fact 
that  so  many  of  them  have  so  little  reading  power,  with  the  re- 
sult that  they  cannot  readily  get  the  ideas  of  others  as  they  are 
to  be  found  in  print.  Every  one  here  will  realize  that  this  is  a 
serious  handicap. 

Another  point  in  this  connection  is  that  some  people  read  the 
same  matter  six  times  as  fast  as  others,  as  was  demonstrated 
some  years  ago  in  a  number  of  experiments  by  the  department 
of  psychology  at  Wellesley  College ;  and,  furthermore,  that  those 
who  read  six  times  as  fast  get  more  out  of  their  reading,  as  a 
rule,  than  those  who  read  only  one-sixth  as  fast.  The  boy  or 
girl  who  has  acquired  the  ability  to  get  ideas  in  one-sixth  the 
time  of  others,  and  at  the  same  time  get  them  better,  has  in  many 


SAMUEL  H.  RANCK  387 

ways  the  same  advantage  that  the  modern  express  train  has 
over  the  means  of  travel  that  was  used  by  our  great  grand- 
parents. 

Another  phase  of  the  library's  work  with  children  is  the  rela- 
tion between  reading  and  retardation.     There  are,  of  course, 

many  elements  that  enter  into  retardation — phys- 
"Work  TJ^ith. 

Ch'ldre  *ca*  or  menta^  deficiency,  poor  teaching,  over- 

crowding in  the  schools,  etc.  The  school  sys- 
tems of  some  of  our  cities  are  spending  as  much  as  thirty  per 
cent  of  their  time  and  effort  in  repeating  work,  through  the  fact 
that  so  many  of  the  children  cannot  make  their  grades,  and  con- 
sequently are  obliged  to  take  the  work  over — spend  two  years 
on  the  work  that  should  be  done  in  one.  It  is  significant  in  this 
connection  that,  with  few  exceptions,  the  cities  that  have  the  high- 
est percentage  of  retardation  are  the  cities  where  the  public 
library  is  reaching  the  lowest  number  of  children ;  in  other  words, 
a  highly  developed  system  of  work  with  children  in  our  libraries 
helps  greatly  to  reduce  the  number  of  repeaters  in  the  schools. 
It  may  be  said  in  passing  that  some  of  the  very  best  work  of  the 
library  with  school  children  may  be  seen  right  here  in  Buffalo. 

What  retardation  means  in  taxation  was  shown  most  clearly 
in  a  recent  article  in  the  "  Boston  Globe,"  discussing  the  school 
expenditures  in  Boston,  by  Dr.  Albert  E.  Win- 
ship,  editor  of  the  "  Journal  of  Education."  In 
the  last  ten  years  fuel  and  light  for  the  Boston  schools  increased 
37  per  cent;  in  recent  years  the  size  of  the  classes  has  been  re- 
duced about  20  per  cent,  thereby  tending  to  increase  to  that 
extent  the  salary  account  and  cost  for  the  additional  school- 
rooms and  their  maintenance ;  the  number  of  high  schools,  where 
the  cost  is  about  twice  that  in  the  first  six  grades,  has  increased 
about  25  per  cent  in  recent  years,  the  number  of  pupils  enter- 
ing in  1910  being  more  than  three  times  the  number  entering  in 
1890;  kindergarten,  sloyd,  physical  training,  medical  inspection, 
school  nurses,  pensions  for  teachers,  all  require  wholly  new  ex- 
penditures in  Boston  as  compared  with  thirty-five  or  forty  years 
ago;  and  other  items  increasing  the  cost  of  schools  might  be 
mentioned.  But  the  significant  thing  in  Boston,  in  spite  of  the 
increases  just  enumerated,  is  the  fact  that  the  expenditures  per 


388       THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  IN  CIVIC  DEVELOPMENT 

pupil  in  1908  (the  last  published  report)  were  more  than  two 
dollars  less  than  they  were  in  1875,  the  exact  figures  for  the 
two  years  being  $34.52,  1908,  and  $36.54,  1875.  How  has  this 
reduction  in  the  cost  per  pupil  been  possible?  Let  me  use 
Dr.  Winship's  exact  words :  "  The  reduction  of  the  course  from 
nine  to  eight  years  has  already  had  its  influence.  But  the  great 
reduction  comes  from  the  30  per  cent  who  used  to  take  two 
years  to  do  one  year's  work,  to  10  per  cent."  In  other  words, 
the  retardation  in  1908  was  only  one-third  as  great  as  in  1875. 

This  relation  between  the  reading  of  the  children  and  retar- 
dation has  been  recently  shown  from  a  different  point  of  view 
by  Superintendent  E.  E.  Ferguson,  of  the  public  schools  of 
Sault  Ste.  Marie,  Michigan.  For  a  number  of  years  Mr.  Fer- 
guson has  been  getting  the  names  of  the  books  read  by  each 
child  each  year  while  he  was  in  the  different  grades.  In  this 
way  for  a  number  of  school  buildings  he  has  each  child's  read- 
ing in  the  4th  grade,  the  5th  grade,  the  6th  grade,  the  7th  grade, 
etc.  His  records  in  this  particular  show  that  the  children  who 
read  the  fewest  books  or  the  poorest  books  are  the  ones  who 
fail  to  make  their  grades,  and  that  those  who  read  the  most 
good  books  (not  too  many  of  them,  of  course)  are  those  who 
make  their  grades,  and  that  the  children  of  poor  standing  who 
can  be  induced  to  begin  reading  books  worth  while  steadily  im- 
prove in  all  their  work  and  have  no  more  trouble  to  make  their 
grades.  The  point  of  Mr.  Ferguson's  investigations  is  that 
whenever  the  child  is  led  to  read  good  books  his  standing  and 
work  immediately  begin  to  improve  in  all  his  subjects. 

Space  prevents  my  discussing  the  work  our  ^libraries  are  doing 
in  displacing  vicious  books  and  reading  for  the  young  and  how 
the  opening  of  a  branch  library  often  reduces  the  number  of 
cases  that  get  into  our  juvenile  courts. 

In  developing  the  reading  work  among  children  in  public  libra- 
ries the  story  hour,  systematic  instruction  in  the  use  of  books 
and  the  library,  and  various  other  features  have  been  used  as 
means.  The  story-hour,  when  rightly  used,  is  an  introduction 
to  literature  and  to  the  reading  of  books,  and  as  such  belongs 
in  the  modern  public  library.  The  use  of  pictures,  illustrated 
lectures,  etc.,  may  all  be  used  for  both  children  and  adults  in 
the  same  way — as  roads  to  books. 


SAMUEL  H.  RANCK  389 

The  library  as  a  factor  in  the  business  life  of  our  cities  is 
very  little  developed.  I  mean  by  this  that  in  few  cities  do  our 
business  men  and  our  working  men  use  books  and  periodicals  in 
connection  with  their  daily  work  to  the  extent  that  they  might. 
Some  of  our  corporations  have  recently  learned  the  value  of 
libraries  as  tools  of  business  and  are  putting  in  regularly  trained 
librarians  to  look  after,  and  keep  in  touch  with,  things  of  this 
kind.  Ideas,  facts,  knowledge,  are  ever  of  the  greatest  value  to 
the  business  man.  These  things  are  always  worth  dollars  and 
cents,  and  most  business  men  and  corporations  spend  loads  of 
good  money  to  get  them.  The  public  library  as  a  factor  in 
greater  business  and  industrial  efficiency  is  only  at  the  beginning 
of  its  development.  The  libraries  of  Newark,  Pittsburg,  and 
Detroit  are  among  those  that  have  developed  certain  lines  of 
this  work  in  a  most  interesting  way. 

Another  field  of  the  library's  activity  until  recently  but  little 

developed  is  its  relation  to  municipal  problems  and  municipal 

administration.      Personally  I  believe  that  bad 

T  -\a  1     u°  TUT          government  in  our  American  cities  has  been  due 
Library  to  Mum-  s 

cipal  Work  more  to  ignorance  and  inefficiency  than  to  dis- 

honesty. With  the  constant  changing  of  offi- 
cials, new  men  have  been  making  the  same  mistakes  in  every 
department  of  municipal  government  which  the  study  of  reports 
or  a  knowledge  of  what  other  cities  are  doing  or  have  done 
would  have  prevented.  The  library  ought  to  be  the  fact-well 
for  the  city  official,  and  the  time  is  coming  when  public  opinion 
will  demand  that  he  use  its  resources  to  aid  him  in  conducting 
the  city's  business. 

But  in  this  department  the  library  can  do  even  more  im- 
portant work  for  the  citizen  than  for  the  public  official,  for 
after  all  an  intelligent  public  opinion  is  absolutely  essential  to 
maintain  efficiency  in  city  administration.  A  collection  of  books 
and  periodicals  on  all  kinds  of  municipal  problems  that  is  freely 
used  by  the  people  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  com- 
munity and  to  its  civic  life.  When  our  people  can  act  on  sound 
knowledge  we  can  have  good  government  in  our  cities — and  not 
before.  In  many  of  our  cities  the  public  library  is  the  arsenal 
to  which  members  of  all  sorts  of  local  organizations — women's 


390      THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  IN  CIVIC  DEVELOPMENT 

clubs,  study  clubs,  improvement  associations — are  constantly  go- 
ing for  ammunition  for  discussions,  debates,  material  for  papers, 
etc.,  on  every  kind  of  public  question.  Some  of  our  libraries 
systematically  follow  up  all  local  programs  and  announcements 
to  invite  those  scheduled  for  papers,  talks,  etc.,  to  call  on  the 
library  for  information  on  their  particular  topic,  offering  to 
assemble  the  material  they  will  need  in  advance  of  their  coming. 
Several  hundred  letters  a  year  are  written  to  such  persons  regu- 
larly in  Grand  Rapids,  and  most  of  these  people  make  use  of 
the  material  provided  for  them  in  this  way.  In  its  direct  effect 
on  the  public  opinion  of  the  community'  I  regard  this  work  as 
of  much  importance. 

Let  me  illustrate  in  some  detail  how  the  library  may  aid  in 
creating  public  opinion.  In  March,  1905,  the  Public  Library  of 
Grand  Rapids,  in  its  course  of  free  lectures,  brought  Dr.  Victor 
C.  Vaughan,  dean  of  the  Medical  Department  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan,  to  the  city  to  give  a  lecture  on  tuberculosis. 
As  part  of  the  advertising  of  its  lectures  the  library  always 
pushes  its  books  on  the  subject  of  the  lecture,  and  for  informa- 
tion on  the  latest  books  on  tuberculosis  we  wrote  to  Dr.  Living- 
ston Farrand,  then  secretary  of  the  National  Society  for  the 
Study  and  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis.  Dr.  Farrand  urged  that 
the  occasion  should  be  used  for  the  formation  of  a  local  society. 
The  library  did  not  feel  that  it  was  its  function  tc  organize  a 
society  in  this  way,  but  turned  the  suggestion  over  to  persons 
who  were  interested  and  who  used  the  lecture  at  the  library  as  a 
means  for  working  up  interest  in  the  formation  of  an  organ- 
ization. A  society  was  formed,  and  a  few  months  later  the 
society  in  cooperation  with  the  library  brought  to  the  city  a  large 
tuberculosis  exhibition  with  lectures  during  the  day  and  evening. 
Some  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  persons  were  brought  to  the 
exhibit  in  the  library  building,  nearly  one  hundred  thousand 
pieces  of  printed  matter  were  distributed,  and  the  people  were 
thoroughly  informed  on  the  whole  subject  of  tuberculosis  in  a 
way  that  they  had  never  been  before.  After  these  ideas  had  been 
so  widely  disseminated  in  the  community  there  was  little  diffi- 
culty in  getting  from  the  city  council  money  for  pushing  muni- 
cipal work  to  care  for  and  to  eliminate  this  disease.  As  a  result 


SAMUEL  H.  RANCK 


391 


of  the  campaign  inaugurated  in  this  way  and  kept  up  ever  since 
by  the  society,  the  death  rate  from  tuberculosis  in  Grand  Rapids 
as  compared  with  the  previous  five  years  has  materially  decreased, 
from  no  per  100,000  population  to  91,  so  that  now  the  death 
rate  for  the  city  is  much  lower  than  the  rate  for  the  state, 
whereas  before  it  was  much  higher.  For  the  last  two  years  the 
death  rate  from  tuberculosis  was  less  than  80.  It  should  be 
added,  however,  that  the  low  rate  of  the  last  two  years  is  partly 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  deaths  which  occur  at  the  city's  tuber- 
culosis sanitarium  do  not  appear  in  the  city's  vital  statistics,  for 
this  sanitarium  is  outside  the  city  limits.  Nevertheless,  if  all 
the  deaths  at  the  sanitarium  were  charged  to  the  city  there  is 
still  a  most  satisfactory  showing  for  the  efforts  put  forth  to 
check  this  disease. 

Do  not  get  the  idea  from  this  illustration  that  the  library  was 
responsible  for  all  this.  It  simply  set  things  in  motion  for  spread- 
ing abroad  the  latest  scientific  information  on  this  subject,  and 
the  public  did  the  rest;  and  that  I  believe  is  all  that  a  library 
should  do  on  matters  of  this  kind.  It  would  be  a  fatal  mistake 
for  the  library  to  use  its  energies  directly  for  propaganda  work. 
Its  great  business  is  the  spreading  of  knowledge  and  light. 

President  Woodrow  Wilson — or  perhaps  I  should  say  Gov- 
ernor-elect Wilson — in  an  address  before  the  Civic  League  of 
St.  Louis  a  year  ago  last  March,  in  referring  to  the  function  of 
knowledge  in  a  democratic  society,  used  these  words : 

"  And,  if  you  want  the  real  free  judgment  of  opinion  which  is 
genuinely  democratic,  how  are  you  going  to  get  it  ?  There  is  only 
one  channel ;  the  channel  of  knowledge.  The  only  way  in  which 
to  have  a  common  knowledge  is  to  have  a  common  information 
with  regard  to  what  is  going  on :  to  have  that  information  abso- 
lutely candid ;  to  have  it  abundantly  full,  so  that  there  will  be  no 
debate  as  to  the  facts  after  the  people  know  the  circumstances, 
and  then  let  opinion  form  as  it  will." 

This  thought  of  Dr.  Wilson  is  the  idea  that  is  back  of  the 
movement  that  has  established  municipal  reference  libraries  such 
as  those  in  Baltimore,  Newark,  Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  re- 
cently in  Kansas  City,  or  municipal  reference  departments  in 


392 


THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  IN   CIVIC  DEVELOPMENT 


public  libraries.  I  could  easily  use  all  the  time  allotted  me  in 
giving  instances  where  cities  have  profited  immensely  by  having 
access  to  accurate  knowledge  of  this  kind  from  the  public  library 
or  a  municipal  reference  library.  The  value  of  knowledge  in 
this  direction  will,  of  course,  be  appreciated  by  every  one  here. 
Not  one  of  us  believes  that  ignorance  is  a  foundation  for 
progress. 

Perhaps  in  no  one  phase  of  municipal  administration  have  our 
cities  been  weaker  than  in  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  facts 

bearing  on  municipal  business.  The  corpora- 
Inform  tio  (  t*on  or  Pr*vate  interests  which  a  city  must  deal 

with  are  generally  loaded  with  information,  or 
misinformation,  from  a  wide  range  of  cities  or  sources,  while 
the  city  usually  is  not,  and  therefore  is  at  a  great  disadvantage. 
Not  long  ago  I  was  present  at  a  little  dinner  party  where  the 
matter  was  discussed  in  a  casual  sort  of  way  how  the  street 
railway  company  in  that  town  was  quietly  at  work  gathering  facts, 
etc.,  to  use  in  its  campaign  for  a  new  franchise — even  now  ten 
years  in  the  future.  I  asked  the  question,  "  And  who  is  gath- 
ering information  in  the  interests  of  the  city  on  this  franchise 
question  ten  years  hence  ?"  The  answer  was,  "  Why,  no  one, 
of  course."  Every  city  needs  a  department  to  gather  informa- 
tion of  this  kind,  and  it  requires  no  lengthy  argument  to  show 
that  the  library  can  be,  and  ought  to  be,  the  most  important 
municipal  agent  in  the  city  for  the  gathering  and  spreading  of 
accurate  knowledge  on  all  matters  relating  to  the  welfare  of  the 
city  and  the  citizens. 

In  this  connection  permit  me  to  quote  these  words  from  Mr. 
E.  S.  Martin  in  a  recent  number  of  "  Harper's  Magazine,"  be- 
cause they  express  so  admirably  the  one  thing  for  which  the 
modern  public  library  stands: 

"  The  great  hope  of  the  world  is  in  the  accumulation  and  dif- 
fusion of  knowledge  —  including  that  better  understanding  of 
human  relations  which  came  to  earth  with  Christianity — and  its 
transmutation  into  wisdom  and  power." 

Our  public  libraries  are  performing  a  most   important  civic 


SAMUEL  H.  RANCK  393 

work,  not  only  for  the  cities,  but  for  the  country  at  large,  in 
bringing  to  our  foreign  population  a  consciousness  of  what 
American  ideas  are  and  stand  for.  Much  of  the  best  work  in 
this  direction  is  done  not  alone  through  books  but  through  lec- 
tures and  great  free  public  lecture  systems  such  as  those  con- 
ducted by  the  Board  of  Education  in  New  York  City  and  by 
the  public  library  of  Philadelphia  are  coming  to  be  more  and 
more  important  as  factors  in  the  education  of  all  classes  of  citi- 
zens. For  the  illustrated  lecture  can  reach  many  where  the 
book  will  fail.  All  this  work  is  far  removed  from  propaganda, 
and  many  of  the  people  in  the  audiences  will  come  to  these  lec- 
tures chiefly  as  a  means  of  recreation — a  most  excellent  reason. 
Lectures  on  other  cities,  with  pictures  and  incidental  reference 
to  all  kinds  of  civic  improvements  carry  with  them  unconsciously 
the  seeds  for  future  progress  among  the  thousands  who  hear 
them.  Another  important  factor  in  lectures,  as  well  as  books, 
periodicals,  etc.,  is  the  appeal  to,  and  the  arousing  of,  the  imag- 
ination. Woods  Hutchinson  has  well  said,  "  A  stolid,  impene- 
trable, pachydermatous  imagination  is  the  greatest  foe  of  prog- 
ress and  enemy  of  human  welfare." 

Some  of  our  public  libraries — and  Newark,  N.  J.,  is  perhaps 
the  best  example — are  doing  a  most  splendid  work  in  developing 

in  the  people  of  the  city  a  city  consciousness. 
Developing  It  is  a   fact  tviat  most  of   tiie  peopie  jn  our 

Co  ciousness  cities  have  little  conception  of  what  their  city 
is  or  stands  for.  The  work  that  is  being  done, 
and  is  still  to  be  done  in  this  direction,  is  largely  pioneer  work. 
Most  of  the  work  libraries  have  done  so  far  has  been  through 
lectures  and  exhibitions,  but  Newark  has  gone  even  further. 
The  public  library  of  that  city,  because  satisfactory  material  for 
the  purpose  did  not  exist  (and  this  is  true  of  almost  every  city), 
has  had  written  and  has  published  and  widely  circulated  books 
and  pamphlets  which  give  the  people,  and  particularly  the  rising 
generation,  a  consciousness  of  how  the  city  came  to  be,  why  it 
is  what  it  is,  and  what  it  hopes  to  be. 

One  reason  why  the  library  can  do  work  of  this  kind  better 
than  any  other  municipal  institution  is  the  one,  so  well  expressed 
in  a  recent  arictle  in  the  Architectural  Record,  that  "  in  any  mod- 


394      THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  IN  CIVIC  DEVELOPMENT 

era  American  city  the  public  library  is  the  institution  which 
is  most  representative  of  the  aspirations  of  the  community;" 
for  the  public  library  is  the  one  institution  that  belongs  to  all 
the  people,  something  that  cannot  be  said  of  our  public  schools 
in  cities  where  sometimes  one-third  or  more  of  the  children  are 
going  to  private  or  parochial  schools. 

The  primary  business  of  our  cities,  however,  is  not  economic 
administration — important  as  that  is — but  the  making  of  citizens 
— intelligent,  industrious,  healthy  and  happy  men  and  women. 
In  this  business  the  city  of  the  future  will  concern  itself  more 
and  more  with  social  problems  primarily,  and  with  financial  and 
administrative  problems  secondarily,  to  the  extent  that  questions 
of  finance  and  administration  relate  to  fundamental  social  prob- 
lems. The  ideal  city  of  the  future  will  be  the  city  where  every 
man  will  be  willing  to  have  every  other  man  in  the  city  as  his 
next-door  neighbor  —  willing  because  every  other  man  will  be 
worthy — worthy  in  intelligence,  in  healthfulness,  in  cleanliness, 
and  in  character.  In  the  civic  development  which  will  produce 
this  city  of  the  future  the  public  library  is  one  (I  shall  be  modest) 
of  the  most  important  factors. 

NOTE. — After  reading  this  paper  Mr.  Ranck  used  about  three  dozen 
lantern  slides  to  describe  and  illustrate  in  greater  detail  some  of  the 
points  made  in  the  paper.  The  slides  used  referred  to  work  being  done 
by  the  libraries  of  Newark,  Hagerstown,  Md.,  Pittsburg,  Detroit,  and 
Grand  Rapids. 


The   Liquor  Situation    In   Ohio. 

By  AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON,  Ph.  D., 
Professor  of  Political  Science  in  Western  Reserve  University. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  suppression  of  the  liquor  traffic, 
Ohio  has  a  very  thoroughgoing  series  of  statutes.  Beginning 

with  residence  districts  within  cities  as  the 
Local  Prohibition  n  -L  ...  .  .  , ,.  .  . 

.    0,.  smallest  unit,  provision  is  made,  in  addition,  for 

local  option  based  upon  the  city,  the  township, 
or  the  county.  It  would  not  seem  possible  to  add  much  to  these 
provisions  in  the  way  of  local  veto  on  the  traffic  except,  per- 
haps, to  authorize  a  vote  by  wards  within  cities  and  to  bestow 
upon  city  councils  the  power  to  exclude  the  saloon  from  the 
city  as  a  whole  or  from  such  parts  as  the  council  might  desig- 
nate. The  latter  power  cities  in  Ohio  at  one  time  possessed. 
Councils  in  some  of  the  smaller  places  exercised  the  prerogative, 
and  their  action  was  upheld  by  the  courts.1  However,  when  the 
new  municipal  code  was  adopted  in  1902,  following  the  judicial 
overturn  of  the  system  of  special  legislation  for  cities,  the  power 
to  prohibit  was  not  specifically  granted.  The  code  now  pro- 
vides that  cities  shall  have  power,  "  to  regulate  ale,  beer,  porter 
houses  and  shops  and  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  as  a  bev- 
erage." This  power  to  regulate  has  been  held  not  to  confer  upon 
councils  the  right  to  prohibit  the  liquor  traffic  even  in  certain  sec- 
tions of  the  city.2 

An  election  upon  the  question  of  the  suppression  or  authori- 
zation of  the  liquor  traffic  in  a  county  may  be  had  upon  the  peti- 
tion of  thirty-five  per  cent  of  the  qualified  electors.  The  election 
must  be  a  special  one  and  a  majority  of  the  votes  cast  at  such  an 
election,  if  against  the  continuance  of  the  traffic,  renders  it  un- 
lawful to  sell  or  give  away  intoxicating  liquor  within  the  county 
after  thirty  days  from  the  date  of  the  election.  Once  an  election 

1  Burckholder  v .  McConnelsville,  20  O.  S.,  308 ;   Alliance  v.  Joyce,  49 
O.  S.,  7. 

2  Berning  v.  Norwood,  72  O.  S.,  593. 

(395) 


396  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

has  been  held,  whatever  the  result,  another  cannot  be  had  for 
three  years.1 

The  township  option  provision  applies  only  to  such  townships 
as  lie  outside  of  municipal  corporations  and,  consequently,  does 
not  greatly  concern  us  here.  However,  for  the  sake  of  complete- 
ness, it  may  be  said  that  in  such  townships  an  election  may  be 
called  upon  the  petition  of  one-fourth  of  the  voters.  The  other 
features  of  the  law  are  substantially  the  same  as  those  applying  to 
counties,  except  that  a  second  election  may  be  held  after  two 
years.2 

A  local  option  election  may  be  called  for  an  entire  municipality 
upon  petition  of  forty  per  cent  of  the  voters.  In  this  case,  also, 
the  election  is  a  special  one,  a  majority  of  the  votes  cast  is  de- 
cisive and  another  election  cannot  be  held  within  two  years.3 

The  final  unit  for  the  right  of  local  option  is  the  residence  dis- 
trict within  municipal  corporations.  The  method  here  is  by  peti- 
tion alone.  Whenever  a  majority  of  the  electors  within  a  resi- 
dence district  petition  that  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  as  a 
beverage  be  prohibited  therein  or,  if  already  prohibited,  that  it 
be  permitted,  the  traffic  is  suppressed  or  authorized  as  the  case 
may  be.  The  statute  carefully  safeguards  the  marking-out  of 
such  districts  by  petitioners,  indicates  what  is  and  what  is  not 
residence  territory,  and  provides  that,  except  in  certain  cases, 
petitions  may  not  be  filed  as  to  the  same  territory  oftener  than 
once  in  two  years.4 

The  enforcement  provisions  accompanying  these  local  option 
laws  are  also  fairly  comprehensive.  In  addition  to  the  usual 
law-enforcing  powers,  which  apply  to  these  laws  in  common  with 
those  relating  to  other  offences,  local  officers  are  granted  powers 
by  several  statutes  designed  especially  to  facilitate  the  suppres- 
sion of  violations  of  local  option  laws.  A  so- 
Enforcement  calkd  „  gearch  and  seizure  »  law  makes  it  ob_ 
Legislation  . 

hgatory  upon  mayors,  justices  of  the  peace  and 

1  General  Code  of  Ohio,  1910,  sees.  6108,  6112,  6115. 

2  Id.,  sees.  6119,  6123,  6125. 

3  Id.,  sees.  6127,  6131,  6136. 

*Id.,  sees.  6140,  6156,  6158,  6160,  6163. 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  397 

judges  of  certain  courts  to  issue  a  warrant  for  the  search  of  any 
premises  in  regard  to  which  any  person  makes  affidavit  that  he 
believes  intoxicating  liquors  are  there  dispensed,  "  in  violation  of 
any  local  option  law  in  such  county."  A  warrant  so  issued  must 
be  directed  to  some  officer,  competent  to  serve  criminal  process, 
designated  by  the  complainant.  This  power  to  order  searches, 
and  the  seizures  that  may  result  therefrom,  may  be  put  into 
operation  against  suspected  violators  of  any  of  the  local  option 
laws  which  have  been  described.  Furthermore,  any  officer  having 
power  to  serve  criminal  process  may,  upon  his  personal  informa- 
tion, and  without  warrant  or  affidavit  being  filed,  search  any  place 
where  he  believes  intoxicating  liquors  are  kept  with  the  intention 
of  dispensing  them  contrary  to  law.1 

A  statute  adopted  last  year  provides  that  the  prosecuting  at- 
torney in  any  county  which  has  voted  to  suppress  the  liquor 
traffic  may  appoint  detectives  to  aid  in  getting  evidence  against 
violators  of  the  county  option  law.  Detectives  so  appointed  are 
completely  under  the  control  of  the  prosecuting  attorney,  except 
that  they  may  not  be  paid  more  than  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  dollars  per  month.  If  the  prosecuting  attorney  fails  to  ap- 
point detectives  the  probate  judge  may  do  so.  In  either  case  the 
salaries  of  such  secret  service  officers  must  be  paid  out  of  the 
county  fund  upon  the  warrant  of  the  prosecutor  or  judge  making 
the  appointment.2 

In  order  to  escape  a  difficulty  often  encountered  in  the  trial  of 
liquor  cases,  two  important  features  have  been  added  to  the 
Ohio  laws.  The  more  important  violations  of  local  option  laws 
may  be  brought  to  trial  without  indictment  by  a  grand  jury  or 
information  by  the  prosecutor.  The  filing  of  an  affidavit  before 
the  proper  judge  is  the  only  formality  required.  Moreover,  un- 
less imprisonment  is  a  part  of  the  penalty,  common  pleas  and 
probate  judges  have  authority  to  try  cases  for  the  violation  of 
local  option  laws  without  a  jury.  The  result  of  this  is  that  in  the 
majority,  if  not  all,  of  such  cases  juries  may  be  dispensed  with.3 

1  Id.,  sees.  6169,  6182. 

2  Id.,  sees.  6184,  6186. 

3  Id.,  sees.  13244.  I324S- 


398  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

Finally,  realizing  that  persons  implicated  in  the  violation  of  the 
local  option  laws  are  likely  to  be  financially  irresponsible,  an  effort 
has  been  made  to  enlist  the  owners  of  real  property  in  law  en- 
forcement. Fines  and  forfeited  bonds,  in  cases  arising  from 
violations  of  the  local  option  laws,  are  made  a  lien  upon  the  real 
property  upon,  or  in,  which  the  unlawful  acts  were  committed.1 

The  county  option  law  was  passed  in  1908,  and  the  first  elec- 
tion was  held  under  it  in  September  of  that  year.  Since  that  time 
seventy  counties  have  voted  under  the  law.  Of  these  fifty-seven 
were  carried  for  prohibition  while  thirteen  voted 
Woi  king  of  tne  tQ  retajn  t]ie  saioon<  pive  counties  have  adopted 
County  Option  .  ,  .  , 

prohibition  by  means  of  the  other  forms  of  local 


option  described  above.  Thirteen  counties  have 
not  voted  on  the  question.  Therefore,  of  the  eighty-eight  coun- 
ties in  the  state  sixty-two  have  adopted  prohibition  while  twenty- 
six  retain  the  saloon.  This  apparent  disproportionate  alignment 
against  the  saloon  is  not  so  marked  when  the  counties  are  con- 
sidered from  the  standpoint  of  population;  for  the  twenty-six 
counties  which  still  permit  the  traffic  represent  somewhat  more 
than  half  of  the  total  population  of  the  state  and  include  the 
seven  largest  cities.  The  local  option  movement,  however,  has 
swept  the  saloon  from  the  greater  part  of  the  territory  of  the 
state  and,  taking  the  state  as  a  whole,  has  greatly  reduced  the 
number  of  places  where  intoxicating  liquor  can  be  lawfully  pro- 
cured. According  to  the  reports  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League,  over 
2,000  saloons  have  been  abolished  and  the  number  reduced  from 
302  for  each  100,000  of  population  in  1893  to  less  than  150  for 
each  100,000  in  1909.  The  same  organization  reports  that  less 
than  7,000  saloons  are  now  operating  in  the  state. 

From  the  best  information  available  it  appears  that,  in  general, 
the  effects  of  the  Ohio  anti-liquor  crusade  on  city  conditions  have 
been  good.  With  the  county  as  the  unit  for  voting,  there  have 
naturally  been  a  large  number  of  cities  involved  in  the  sixty-two 
counties  which  have  voted  out  the  saloon.  In  perhaps  a  majority 
of  the  cases  both  the  city  and  country  vote  has  been  for  prohi- 
bition. On  the  other  hand,  in  a  good  many  instances,  cities  have 

1  Id.,  sec.  13249. 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  399 

been  carried  for  prohibition  by  the  weight  of  votes  from  the  rural 
districts.  Where  this  has  occurred,  the  movement  has  been  saved 
from  serious  difficulties  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  unwilling 
cities  have  usually  been  small.  The  adverse  vote  of  a  city  of  such 
size  that,  at  all  times,  the  sheriff,  his  deputies  and  the  constables, 
are  the  chief  organs  of  law  enforcement,  does  not  present  a  very 
serious  problem.  Under  such  circumstances  the  differentiation 
between  city  and  country  population  is  not  very  marked,  the  city 
portion  of  the  sheriff's  jurisdiction  is  not  too  extensive  to  be 
policed  by  his  meagre  force  and,  most  important  of  all,  the  county 
government  in  the  minds  of  city  and  country  folk  alike,  trans- 
cends that  of  the  city  in  importance.  Where  such  conditions 
exist,  a  sheriff  who  enforces  a  county  option  law  within  a  city 
which  has  rejected  it  is  not  regarded  in  all  respects  as  an  alien 
enemy. 

The  sweep  of  the  anti-saloon  movement  in  Ohio,  however,  has 

carried  a  number  of  cities  for  prohibition  which  are  too  large  to 

answer  to  the  above  description.    Among  these 

are  East  Liverpool,  Newark,  Zanesville,  and 
County  Option  «...,,  ,  . F,  V  r 

Springfield,  which  the  census  of  1910  will  prob- 
ably show  to  range  in  population  from  20,000  to  50,000.  All  of 
these  cities  voted  against  prohibition  but  were  overborne  by 
ballots  in  the  country  districts.  For  instance,  Muskingum  county, 
of  which  Zanesville  is  the  county  seat,  voted  for  prohibition  by  a 
majority  of  ion.  The  majority  against  prohibition  in  Zanes- 
ville was  1414.  The  experience  derived  from  most  of  these  cities 
since  the  local  option  elections  demonstrates  that  the  county  as  a 
unit  for  local  option  voting  has  not  yet  fully  justified  itself  where 
cities  of  considerable  size  are  involved. 

Of  the  four  cities  mentioned  the  law  has  been  most  success- 
fully enforced  in  Springfield,  the  largest.  Reliable  information 
indicates  that  conditions  there  are  fairly  satisfactory.  It  is  not 
claimed  that  there  is  not  some  illicit  selling  by  "  boot  leggers  " 
and,  perhaps,  to  a  very  slight  extent,  by  speak-easies.  It  is  only 
claimed  that  the  law  is  as  well  enforced  against  illicit  traffic 
in  intoxicating  liquors  as  are  the  laws  against  other  offences  of 
similar  gravity.  After  all  that  is  the  only  standard  of  success 
that  can  reasonably  be  demanded  in  the  enforcement  of  prohibi- 


4oo  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

tion  laws  or  any  other  repressive  legislation.  Some  evidence  of 
the  success  of  the  experiment  in  Springfield  is  afforded  by  the 
fact  that  the  local  newspaper  which  was  most  strongly  opposed 
to  prohibition  has  recently  taken  the  other  side.  This  paper 
has  declared  editorially  that  a  person  must  be  blind  indeed  who 
will  not  admit  that  conditions  under  prohibition  are  far  better 
than  those  which  formerly  prevailed. 

As  to  the  other  three  cities,  the  reports  are  not  so  favorable. 
In  Zanesville  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  illicit  selling,  and 
East  Liverpool  represents  a  still  lower  standard.  In  the  latter 
city  a  personal  friend  reported  to  the  writer  that  he  had  visited 
three  or  four  places  in  one  evening  where  liquor  was  sold  more 
or  less  openly.  He  was  told  that  the  same  number  of  places 
might  be  visited  every  night  for  a  week  without  duplication. 
That,  however,  was  a  year  ago,  and  vigorous  measures  since 
taken  have  probably  made  some  improvement,  though  conditions 
are  still  reported  to  be  bad. 

The  liquor  war  in  Newark  and  its  bloody  results  have  been  her- 
alded to  the  world  by  the  daily  press.  Briefly  stated,  the  facts 
were  as  follows :  Newark  had  long  been  noted 
The  Newark  ag  a  rather  "tough"  town.  With  a  population 
of  probably  40,000,  it  had  fifty  saloons.  The 
principal  industry  was  a  beer-bottle  factory  employing  about 
2,500  men.  In  January,  1909,  a  local  option  election  was  held 
under  the  county  option  law  and  the  county  voted  for  prohibition 
by  a  majority  of  798.  Newark  gave  a  majority  of  1,557  against 
prohibition.  Immediately  after  the  election  the  bottle  factory 
closed  down,  throwing  its  employees  out  of  work.  Both  the  city 
and  county  administrations  were,  apparently,  in  league  with  the 
worst  element  among  the  saloon  and  dive  keepers.  A  good  many 
of  the  saloons  of  the  town  did  not  close  following  the  local  option 
election  and  these,  naturally,  were  not  of  the  best  type.  In  a  short 
time  new  drinking  places  were  opened,  the  proprietors  of  some 
of  which  ostentatiously  flaunted  their  contempt  for  the  law.  Con- 
ditions rapidly  became  worse.  Low  characters  of  all  descriptions 
flocked  into  the  city.  These  joined  forces  with  the  illicit  saloons, 
and  Newark  found  itself  in  the  grasp  of  the  vicious  element 
Respectable  citizens,  many  of  whom  were  not  in  favor  of  pro- 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  401 

hibition,  were  threatened  and  some  asaulted  for  protesting  against 
the  prevailing  condition  of  license.  No  relief  could  be  secured 
through  the  city  or  county  officials,  and  at  last  appeal  was  made 
to  the  state  Anti-Saloon  League.  That  organization  sent  in  de- 
tectives who  procured  evidence  against  the  illicit  liquor  sellers 
and  dive  keepers.  Afterwards  search  warrants  were  issued  to 
these  officers  by  the  mayor  of  Granville,  a  village  in  the  same 
county.  In  attempting  to  serve  the  warrants  upon  the  saloon 
keepers  of  Newark,  on  July  8th,  the  detectives  were  assaulted  by 
a  mob  and  one,  a  mere  boy,  was  chased  for  two  miles,  overtaken, 
and  brutally  beaten.  In  defending  himself  the  boy  shot  and 
killed  a  saloon  keeper,  who  was  also  an  ex-captain  of  police.  The 
boy  was  placed  in  jail  by  the  local  authorities,  who  had  done  prac- 
tically nothing  to  stop  the  rioting.  That  night  a  mob  broke  into 
the  jail,  without  the  slightest  opposition  from  the  sheriff,  though 
the  jail  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  strongest  in  Ohio,  dragged  the 
young  prisoner  to  a  telephone  pole  and  hanged  him.  No  city  was 
ever  more  fully  in  the  grasp  of  a  mob  of  lawless  thugs,  and  never 
have  local  authorities  been  more  supine,  if  not  in  actual  sym- 
pathy with  the  rioters. 

The  reign  of  terror  in  Newark  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the 
prompt  action  of  the  governor.  Upon  being  informed  of  the 
situation,  he  at  once  sent  in  state  troops,  suspended  the  mayor, 
and  ordered  the  sheriff  to  report  at  the  governor's  office  to 
answer  to  complaints  filed  against  him.  Both  the  mayor  and 
sheriff  resigned.  The  presence  of  the  troops  and  the  reaction- 
following  the  tragedy  restored  the  city  to  quiet  and  a  semblance  of 
order.  The  chief  offenders  have  been  indicted  and  are  awaiting 
trial.  What  the  final  result  will  be  it  is,  doubtless,  too  soon  to 
state,  but  it  seems  improbable  that  the  town  will  revert  to  its 
former  deplorable  condition. 

A  great  deal  has  been  made  of  the  Newark  affair  by  both  sides 
in  the  liquor  controversy.  A  dispassionate  view  does  not  seem 
to  warrant  some  of  the  extreme  conclusions  which  have  been 
drawn.  The  town  probably  represents  an  exceptional  case  in 
which  many  elements  combined  to  lead  to  the  disastrous  results. 

Consideration  has  been  given  so  far  to  the  working  of  the 
county  option  law.  It  should  also  be  noted  that  large  areas  in 


402  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

the  wet  counties  have  been  carried  dry  under  the  township,  muni- 
cipal and  residence  district  option  laws  already  described.  In 
many  of  the  counties  which  still  have  saloons  they  are  confined 
to  one  or  a  few  of  the  larger  places.  The  Anti-Saloon  League 
reports  that  1,300  of  the  1,376  townships  of  the  state  are  dry 
and  that  90  per  cent  of  the  territory  of  the  state  is  free  from 
saloons. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  cities  where  the  saloon  still  re- 
mains, however,  the  prohibition  of  the  traffic  in  the  surrounding 
rural  townships  and  villages  has  merely  complicated  the  problem. 
The  number  of  people  is  not  small  who  wish  the  saloon  removed 
from  their  immediate  neighborhood,  but  are  not  at  all  averse  to 
having  a  drinking  place  at  the  county  seat  or  nearest  large  town. 
To  a  certain  extent,  therefore,  the  township  and  municipal  option 
laws  have  served  to  concentrate  the  saloons  in  the  larger  centers 
of  the  wet  counties.  The  burden  of  the  enforcement  of  the  laws 
for  the  regulation  of  the  traffic  for  this  reason  falls  largely  upon 
city  authorities.  The  same  is  true  in  regard  to  the  enforcement 
of  the  local  option  laws  in  the  dry  counties.  The  cities  con- 
tain the  greater  portion  of  the  persons  who  wish  the  traffic  con- 
tinued, and  also  afford  the  best  facilities  for  evasion  of  the  law. 
Thus,  from  an  administrative  standpoint,  the  enforcement  of  both 
the  regulative  and  prohibition  laws  becomes  primarily  a  city 
problem. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  said  that  Ohio  legislators  exhibit  a 
characteristic  well  known  to  students  of  the  legislative  aspect  of 
the  liquor  problem  everywhere.  Representatives  from  the  rural 
districts  and  small  towns  vote  readily  for  laws  which  afford  a 
fair  solution  of  the  liquor  question  so  far  as  their  own  localities 
are  concerned.  At  the  same  time,  either  from 
Legis  ative  ignorance  or  gross  selfishness,  they  refuse  to 

Cities  recognize  that  these  laws  may  lay  unwarranted 

burdens  on  the  cities.  There  is,  for  instance, 
the  extra  expense  which  a  city  must  incur  for  policing  its  juris- 
diction against  its  own  drinkers,  reinforced  by  those  from  the  dry 
districts.  If  the  city  is  dry  it  becomes  the  center  of  activity  for 
illicit  sellers  of  liquor  and  is  confronted  by  all  of  the  problems  of 
law  enforcement  arising  therefrom.  If  the  city  is  carried  dry  by 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  403 

outside  votes  it  is  too  frequently  permitted  to  suffer  the  degen- 
erating effects  arising  from  the  non-enforcement  of  a  conspicuous 
law.  All  of  these  evils,  and  more,  result  from  the  failure  or  re- 
fusal of  legislators  to  take  account  of  the  fact  that  the  liquor 
traffic  is,  from  its  very  nature,  a  city  business.  In  fairness  to  the 
cities  the  legislature  should  either  leave  them  greater  freedom  to 
deal  with  the  liquor  traffic  or  recognize  the  duty  of  the  entire 
state  in  the  enforcement  of  the  legislation  which  is  now  such  a 
burden  and  source  of  demoralization  to  city  governments. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  success  of  the  local  option 
legislation  in  Ohio  depends  upon  the  character  of  its  enforcement. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  present  enforce- 
Law  Enforcement  merit  provisions  are  ingeniously  drawn  and  un- 
LocaiTtion  usually  strong.  The  point  of  greatest  difficulty 

is  found  in  the  case  of  cities  carried  dry  by  outr 
side  votes  under  the  county  option  law.  Some  of  the  leaders 
of  the  anti-liquor  forces  realize  this — probably  the  rank  and  file 
do  not.  This  paper  has  attempted  to  make  clear  that  the  opera- 
tion of  the  county  option  law  has  already  carried  cities  for  pro- 
hibition which  are  so  large  that  the  law  is  strained  to  the  utmost. 
Its  success  is  not  yet  assured  in  several  of  the  larger  cities  af- 
fected. Its  application  under  similar  circumstances  to  any  of  the 
five  or  six  largest  cities  of  the  state  would,  undoubtedly,  prove  a 
great  misfortune  to  the  temperance  movement  in  Ohio  unless 
stronger  means  of  enforcement  are  provided  than  those  now  in 
existence. 

Realizing  the  difficulties  just  mentioned,  the  anti-saloon  forces 
attempted  to  secure,  in  1910,  the  passage  of  a  law  which  would 
have  placed  the  responsibility  for  law  enforcement  more  definitely 

on  the  governor.  The  governor,  in  Ohio,  already 

Attempt  to  has  power  to  remove  mayors  for  "  misconduct 

ecure    ur    ei      jn  of^ce>  or  bribery,  or  any  gross  neglect  of  duty, 

Legislation  gross  immorality  or  habitual  drunkenness."  The 

proposed  law  enlarged  this  power  and  provided 
more  definitely  for  the  manner  in  which  it  should  be  exercised. 
Entirely  aside  from  the  liquor  question  the  bill  was  a  commend- 
able one  as  it  would,  if  enacted,  have  made  possible  a  more 
nearly  uniform  enforcement  of  all  state  laws.  However,  the 


404  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

liquor  interests  threw  their  influence  against  the  bill,  the  cry  that 
it  would  interfere  unduly  with  local  autonomy  was  raised,  and  the 
bill  was  defeated. 

Many  are  inclined  to  regard  the  opposition  of  the  liquor  forces 
to  this  bill  as  a  tactical  blunder.  It  is  argued  that  with  such  a 
law  on  the  statute  books  much  less  anti-liquor  legislation  would 
be  enacted — a  position  in  which  there  is  considerable  merit.  Any 
one  acquainted  with  the  making  of  liquor  laws  is  aware  that 
many  legislators  vote  for  stringent  anti-liquor  measures  because 
they  know  that  such  laws  must  depend  for  enforcement  upon 
local  authorities.  These  legislators  curry  favor  with  the  reform 
forces  by  supporting  their  measures  while  retaining  their  stand- 
ing with  the  liquor  interests  by  quietly  pointing  to  the  fact  that 
the  restrictive  measures  cannot  be  enforced.  There  is,  of  course, 
little  doubt  that  the  assurance  that  all  laws  would  be  strictly  and 
uniformly  enforced  would  prove  one  of  the  most  effective  pre- 
ventives of  this  hypocritical  legislative  action  and  of  much 
unwise  legislation  as  well. 

Next  to  steady  and  thorough  law  enforcement  the  success  of 
the  anti-liquor  movement  in  Ohio  clearly  depends  upon  the  prose- 
cution of  a  patient,  continuous  and  sane  cam- 
Need  of  paign  of  education.  Permanent  success  against 

Educational  r  1     •  ,        i     i          *      *• 

n  a  foe  so  strongly  intrenched  as  the  liquor  m- 

Campaign  ° J ,  .    , 

terests  cannot  be  based  on  the  frenzied  appeal 

and  semi-hysteria  which  characterize  many  local  option  elec- 
tions. The  methods  commonly  in  vogue  engender  an  excitement 
which  is,  in  itself,  a  sort  of  intoxication  and,  hence,  liable  to  be 
followed  by  the  usual  "  day  after  ".  This  is  written  out  of  no 
lack  of  sympathy  with  the  purposes  of  the  principal  antagonist  of 
the  liquor  traffic  in  Ohio.  Neither  is  there  any  intention  to  be- 
little the  feeling  of  resentment  which  is  likely  to  possess  one  who 
contemplates  the  physical,  mental  and  moral  degradation  that  can 
be  traced  to  the  use  of  intoxicating  drink.  It  is  merely  intended 
to  point  out  the  fact,  so  well  known  to  students  of  political  and 
social  reform,  that  many  worthy  movements  have  been  defeated 
or  long  deprived  of  a  full  measure  of  success  by  the  adoption  of 
unsound  methods. 

Another  weakness  of  the  Ohio  anti-liquor  movement  lies  in  the 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  405 

lack  of  any  program  broader  than  mere  legislative  suppression. 
Ameliorating  measures,  where  the  saloon  still 
Lack  of  exists,  or  recognition  of  the  fact  that  poverty 

Broad  Program  and  social  conditions  may  contribute  to  drunk- 
enness as  well  as  the  reverse,  seem  to  be 
strangely  absent.  This  attitude  is  doubtless  due  to  two  reasons 
arising  from  the  nature  of  the  anti-saloon  organization.  In  the 
first  place,  the  chief  strength  of  the  movement  lies  in  the  country 
districts  and  small  towns  where  the  conditions  of  city  life  are 
not  understood  or  appreciated.  The  second  reason  is  that  the 
organization  is  largely  a  league  of  churches  or  church  members 
in  the  same  districts.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  body  of  peo- 
ple more  sincere  or  actuated  by  higher  motives  than  these.  How- 
ever, they  are  inclined  to  attribute  the  existence  of  social  ills 
to  one  or  a  few  causes  and  to  have  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the^ 
possibility  of  making  people  good  by  legal  fiat.  They  are  also 
prone  to  feel  that  their  consciences  are  clear  and  their  work  done 
when  a  legislative  prohibition  has  been  written  into  the  statutes. 

The  influence  of  the  churches  on  the  anti-saloon  movement  is 
also  apparent  in  another  direction.     The  ardent  supporters  of 
the  Anti-Saloon  League  are,  of  course,  opposed 
Churches  and         to  the  openmg  Of  the  saloons  on  Sunday.    To  a 
Anti-Saloon  .,    r,,     °.  ,  .       ... 

Mo  ement  considerable   degree  they   are   also  inclined  to 

support  the  other  Sunday  laws.  They  will  be 
found  opposing  Sunday  professional  base-ball,  the  opening  of 
moving-picture  theatres  and,  not  infrequently,  the  playing  of  non- 
professional  games  on  private  grounds  and  in  the  parks.  Grant- 
ing that  the  first  two  examples  admit  of  some  argument  on  ac- 
count of  their  commercial  character,  the  tendency  is  still  signifi- 
cant. It  indicates  a  widespread  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  condi- 
tions of  modern  urban  life.  It  also  bears  witness  to  an  unwar- 
ranted blindness  to  the  strength  of  the  saloon  as  a  social  center 
and  the  impossibility  of  destroying  that  influence  except  by  the 
creation,  or  permission,  of  substitutes.  Few  will  claim  that  the 
drink  habit  would  disappear,  could  we  but  surround  the  saloon 
with  ideal  social  conditions ;  but  there  is  no  reason  why  the  saloon 
should  be  permitted  to  increase  its  strength  by  ministering  to  the 
natural  and  healthful  social  needs  of  the  community.  It  is  not 


406  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

probable  that  sound  and  permanent  progress  will  be  made  in  the 
warfare  against  drunkenness,  unless  there  is  joined  with  the 
policy  of  repression  and  prohibition  a  constructive  program  for 
meeting  the  legitimate  social  demands  of  the  less  fortunate  por- 
tion of  society. 

Turning  from  those  parts  of  Ohio  where  the  policy  of  local 
prohibition  prevails,  we  may  inquire  briefly  concerning  conditions 
in  those  places  where  the  traffic  is  still  permissible.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  there  are  twenty-six  counties  which  have  either 
rejected  prohibition  or  have  not  voted  on  the  question.  These 
counties  contain  over  56  per  cent  of  the  population  of  the  state 
and  the  largest  seven  cities.  In  these  counties  we  are  afforded  a 
view  of  the  other  phase  of  Ohio's  liquor  legislation — regulation. 

Everything  having  to  do  with  the  regulation  of  the  traffic  in 

intoxicating  liquors  in  conditioned  by  the  provision  of  the  state 

constitution  which  prohibits  the  adoption  of  a 

Constitutional        license   system.     The   present   constitution   of 

Jro7!^0.n  Ohio  was  adopted  in  1851.    Just  prior  to  that 

Forbidding  .  -      . 

License  tlme  t"e  state  "a"  suffered  greatly  from  the 

evils  of  intemperance.  The  means  of  transpor- 
tation being  poor,  large  quantities  of  grain  were  transformed  into 
whiskey  and  sent  down  the  rivers  and  out  into  commerce  by  way 
of  New  Orleans.  Small  stills  were  numerous  and  the  local  traffic 
was  carried  on  under  an  inadequate  system  of  control.  Under 
these  conditions  drunkenness  became  a  serious  evil  and  the  people 
were  much  aroused.  Moreover,  the  convention  met  at  a  time  of 
widespread  temperance  agitation.  The  Maine  prohibitory  law 
was  passed  by  the  legislature  in  1851,  and  organizations,  like  the 
"  Sons  of  Temperance  "  in  Ohio,  were  active  in  many  states. 

Very  soon  after  the  convention  met  in  1850,  petitions  began  to 
come  in  asking  that  a  provision  be  inserted  in  the  new  constitution 
prohibiting  the  legislature  from  passing  any  law  "  legalizing  the 
traffic  in  ardent  spirits  ".1  There  was  a  strong  sentiment  in  the 

1  See  Debates  Ohio  Convention  of  1850-1851,  Vol.  I,  pp.  167,  206,  298, 
313  for  fair  illustrations  of  these  petitions.  In  almost  every  case  the 
petition  was  for  a  provision  of  the  constitution-  which  would  prohibit  the 
legislature  from  legalising  the  traffic.  The  uniformity  in  the  wording  of 
the  petitions  was  doubtless  due  to  the  activity  of  the  "  Sons  of  Temper- 
ance" and  similar  organizations. 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  407 

convention  against  limiting  the  discretion  of  the  legislature  in 
this  matter,1  but  the  pressure  brought  to  bear  finally  resulted  in 
the  submission  of  an  anti-license  provision  to  be  voted  on  as  a 
separate  section  of  the  new  instrument.  This  privided  that :  "  No 
license  to  traffic  in  intoxicating  liquors  shall  hereafter  be  granted 
in  this  state;  but  the  general  assembly  may,  by  law,  provide 
against  the  evils  resulting  therefrom."  2  This  section  was  adopted 
as  a  part  of  the  constitution  by  a  popular  vote  of  113,237  to 
104,255. 

Even  when  the  anti-license  section  was  under  consideration  by 

the  constitutional  convention  there  was  a  wide  difference  of 

opinion  as  to  its  meaning.     Some  members  of 

Doubtful  Mean-     tjje  convention  and  many  people  in  the  state  ap- 

P*™'1?  believed  that  the  traffic  could  not  be 
legally  carried  on  unless  licensed  and  that  the 

section  was,  therefore,  equivalent  to  prohibition.3  Others  inter- 
preted the  provision  to  mean  that  the  inability  of  the  legislature 
to  license  would  free  the  traffic  from  practically  all  legislative 
molestation.  There  is  no  doubt  that  when  the  section  was  sub- 
mitted to  popular  vote  many  people  who  favored  the  traffic  voted 
for  it  upon  the  latter  ground.  It  was  also  charged  in  the  con- 
vention, by  some  members  opposed  to  the  anti-license  section, 
that  the  real  purpose  of  its  advocates  was  to  prepare  the  way  for 
legislative  prohibition  by  making  it  impossible  to  provide  any 
effective  system  of  regulation.  The  effect  of  the  adoption  of  the 
provision,  declared  one  member  of  the  convention,  would  be  that 
"  The  evils  of  intemperance  will  first  become  enormous — col- 
lossal,  gigantic.  Rum  will  flow  from  ten  thousand  fountains — 
will  be  retailed  from  countless  hovels  all  over  the  land  until  the 
evils  of  intemperance  will  become  so  urgent  as  to  demand  of  the 
General  Assembly  the  only  remedy  in  its  power,  and  that  is  total 

abolition  of  the  business  of  making  and  vending  spirits 

This  policy  is  like  that  of  a  physician,  who  would  reduce  his 
patient  to  the  gates  of  death  to  convince  him  of  the  necessity  of 

1  See  report  of  Committee  on  Miscellaneous  Subjects,  I  Debates,  167. 

2  Ohio  Constitution,  Schedule,  sec.  18. 
8  Adler  v.  Whitbeck,  44  O.  S.,  539. 


4o8  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

some  potent  remedy."  *  Allowing  something  for  the  rather  ex- 
agerated  language,  this  was  clearly  an  accurate  description  of  the 
views  of  many  people  in  1851,  just  as  it  represents  the  attitude 
of  many  at  the  present  day.  There  has  always  been  a  class  op- 
posed to  any  compromise  with  the  liquor  traffic,  refusing  to 
choose  between  annihilation  and  amelioration  and  even  believing 
that  any  conditions  arising  from  an  unregulated  traffic  are  justi- 
fiable if  they  will  but  prepare  the  popular  mind  for  prohibition. 

The  proceedings  of  the  convention  make  it  clear  that  one  of  the 
strongest  motives  for  the  adoption  of  the  provision  against  license 

was  a  purely  sentimental  one.  It  will  be  noted 
Sentimental  that  the  ianguage  of  the  various  petitions  called 

Argument  ,  .  .         ,  ^  ,-.,.•  1  •^•J.- 

Against  License     for  a  Provlslon  <>f  the  constitution     prohibiting 

the  legislature  from  legalizing  the  traffic  in  in- 
toxicating drinks."  As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  this  meant 
to  some  that  the  failure  to  license  the  traffic  would,  in  effect,  pro- 
hibit it.  To  many  others  it  was  a  protest  against  giving  the 
traffic  in  intoxicants,  what  they  considered,  the  dignity  of  legal 
recognition.  In  defense  of  the  anti-license  section,  its  chief  ad- 
vocate in  the  convention  said :  "  There  has  been  a  legal  sanction 
thrown  around  this  crime.  We  desire  not  only  to  take  it  away, 
but  to  abolish  at  once  every  hope  of  its  return.  Therefore  we 
say  to  the  legislature:  Let  it  alone;  you  shall  not  license  it  and 
thus  give  it  a  respectability  of  which  it  is  undeserving."  2  This 
argument  was,  apparently,  an  influential  one  in  the  convention, 
and  when  the  constitution  was  before  the  people  in  1851.  In 
fact,  judging  from  the  frequency  with  which  one  hears  it  re- 
peated at  the  present  time,  it  is  still  considered  by  many  people 
of  Ohio  a  sufficient  justification  of  the  anti-license  provision. 

It  seems  strange  that  such  an  erroneous  view  of  the  implication 
of  licensing  a  business  could  have  been  entertained  even  sixty 

years  ago,  and  doubly  strange  that  it  should  be 
Real  Implication  persisted  in  at  the  present  time.  There  was  a 

time  when  license  implied  legal,  or  even  royal, 

1  Remarks  of  Mr.  Archbold,  II  Debates,  717. 

2  Speech  of  Mr.  Lawrence,  Id.,  715.     See  also  statement  of  Mr.  Stanton, 
Id.,  716. 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  409 

sanction  of  a  business  to  which  it  was  extended.  That  form  of 
license,  however,  has  long  since  practically  disappeared.  The 
licensing  of  a  business  in  reality  indicates  legal  distrust  rather 
than  approval.  The  modern  implication  of  a  license  was  very 
accurately  stated  by  another  member  of  the  Ohio  convention  of 
1851,  who  said  that,  "The  fact  that  a  business  is  not  dependent 
on  license  is  a  recommendation ;  and  the  very  moment  you  place 
any  business  under  a  license  law  the  implication  is  that  it  is  not 
a  harmless  business.  It  is  the  unlicensed  business  that  is  cred- 
itable, because  allowed  to  be  carried  on  untrammeled  by  law."  x 

The  above  are  some  of  the  reasons,  based  in  part  on  conflicting 
interpretations,   which   led   to  the   adoption   of   the   anti-license 
provisions  of  the  Ohio  constitution.     The  ex- 
Interpretation  of  pectations  of  none  of  the  groups  that  supported 
Anti-License  f  •>•%         «•    j    >.*         ,1  i  ,   j 

S  ction  were  fully  realized.    As  to  those  who  expected; 

that  the  section  would  result  practically  in  an  in- 
terdiction of  the  traffic,  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio  has  declared 
in  a  leading  case:  "  Many,  if  not  a  great  majority  of  the  people 
of  the  state,  supposed  that  if  no  license  were  granted  to  traffic  in 
intoxicating  liquors,  the  traffic  would  be  illegal,  and  would  perish 
from  the  want  of  protection,  and  by  the  infliction  of  such  pen- 
alties as  might  be  imposed  under  laws  made  to  regulate  the  evils 
resulting  from  the  traffic.  .  .  .If  this  is  a  correct  interpretation 
of  the  provision,  it  has  proved  a  great  delusion,  for  its  practical 
working  has  been  to  make  the  traffic  in  a  measure  free."  2  On 
the  other  hand,  those  interested  in  the  business  who  thought  the, 
provision  would  prevent  the  legislature  from  placing  any  serious 
restrictions  upon  it  were  also  disappointed.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, they  had  greater  cause  for  satisfaction  than  the  first  group 
mentioned,  until  the  recent  wave  of  prohibition  swept  the  state. 
Under  the  constitutional  provision,  as  interpreted  by  the  courts, 
any  one  is  free  to  enter  the  saloon  business  and  there  is  no  re- 
striction as  to  numbers.  The  result  is  that  there  is  no  preliminary 
sifting  of  those  who  seek  to  engage  in  the  business.  Men  of  any 
character — even  those  with  criminal  records — are  privileged  to 

1  Remarks  of  Mr.  Mitchell,  Id.,  722. 

2  Adler  v.  Whitbeck,  44  O.  S.,  557-558. 


4io  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

sell  intoxicants.  The  lack  of  restriction  as  to  the  number  of 
saloons  has  led  to  an  undue  multiplication  of  drinking  places, 
and  this  tendency  has  been  encouraged  by  competition  among 
the  brewers.  Until  recently  neither  of  these  circumstances  in- 
clined the  liquor  interests  to  be  greatly  dissatisfied  with  the  anti- 
license  clause.  So  long  as  business  was  good  they  did  not  concern 
themselves  greatly  as  to  the  conditions  under  which  it  was  car- 
ried on. 

The  rising  tide  of  local  option  caused  the  liquor  interests,  par- 
ticularly the  brewers,  to  view  the  anti-license  section  with  less 
complacency.  They  began  to  discover  that  a  low 
Present  Attitude    saloon  was  a  powerful  incentive  to  a  dry  vote 
of  Liquor  jn  a  COunty  or  city.    They  also  discovered  with 

Interests  Toward  somethjng  ak}n  to  consternation  that  the  anti- 
No-License  .  . 

Section  license  clause  stood  in  the  way  of  legislation 

which  might  tend  to  eliminate  some  of  the  ob- 
jectionable features  of  the  traffic.  The  liquor  interests  are  now, 
for  the  first  time,  near  agreement  as  to  the  undesirability  of  the 
anti-license  provision.  In  the  past  this  has  not  been  true.  The 
provision  was  supported  in  1851  by  temperance  advocates  who 
expected  the  suppression  of  the  traffic  and  friends  of  the  liquor 
interests  who  wished  it  left  free.  When  the  section  was  again 
separately  submitted  to  the  people  in  1883,  the  same  alignment  of 
forces  was  chiefly  responsible  for  its  retention  in  the  constitu- 
tion. From  present  indications  it  may  be  expected  that,  when 
the  question  is  again  raised,  those  interested  in  the  business  will1 
be  found  pretty  solidly  united  in  favor  of  eliminating  this  section, 
from  the  constitution. 

The  difficulties  placed  in  the  way  of  any  satisfactory  system 
of  regulation  by  the  anti-license  provision  of  the  Ohio  constitu- 
tion may  be  indicated  by  a  review  of  some  of 
the  judicial  decisions  which  have  served  to  fix 
its  meaning.    In  1882,  a  law  was  passed  provid- 
ing that  persons  engaging  in  the  traffic  in  in- 
Leeislation  •      •       «•  ,      « t        <•         j  • 

toxicating  liquor  should,  before  doing  so,  exe- 
cute a  bond  to  the  state  in  the  sum  of  $  1,000,  to  secure  the  faith- 
ful performance  of  the  provision  of  the  act.  One  of  the  features 
of  the  act  was  a  graduated  tax  on  those  engaging  in  the  business. 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  41 ! 

Failure  to  pay  the  tax  was  declared  to  break  the  provisions  of  the 
bond.  Persons  engaging,  or  continuing  to  engage,  in  the  business 
after  forfeiture  of  the  bond,  or  without  having  executed  it,  were 
deemed  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor  and  might  be  fined  from  $500 
to  $1,000.  Any  one  continuing  in  the  business  after  default  of 
payment  of  the  tax  was  liable,  with  his  securities,  in  double  the 
amount  of  the  default  and  costs.  It  will  be  noted  that  this  law 
placed  no  restrictions  upon  engaging  in  the  business  of  selling  in- 
toxicating liquors,  except  the  execution  of  a  bond  for  the  pay-: 
ment  of  a  tax  and  the  imposition  of  a  heavy  fine  for  continuing 
in  the  business  after  default  of  such  payment  or  without  having 
executed  the  bond.  However,  the  supreme  court  declared  the  law 
unconstitutional  upon  the  ground  that  the  provisions  cited  consti- 
tuted a  license  within  the  meaning  of  the  constitution.  The  court 
defined  a  license  as  "  permission  granted  by  some  competent 
authority  to  do  an  act  which,  without  such  permission,  would  be 
illegal."  The  law  under  consideration,  said  the  court,  imposed 
a  license  and  was  not  a  mere  tax  with  provision  for  collection, 
because  non-compliance  with  the  statute  rendered  the  prosecution 
of  the  business  to  an  extent  illegal.1 

An  act  of  1883  provided,  among  other  things,  that  it  should  be 

a  misdemeanor  to  engage  in  the  traffic  in  intoxicating  liquors 

on  the  premises  of  another  without  the  written 

m     j.      £  •«  QQO 

.    consent  of  the  owner.     This  did  not  seem  an 
Unconstitutional    .  ....          .    , 

improper  provision  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 

law  also  laid  a  tax  or  from  $100  to  $200  on  the  business  and  de- 
clared that  the  tax  might  be  satisfied  by  sale  of  the  property  in 
which  it  was  carried  on.  This  law  was  also  held  to  be  uncon- 
stitutional upon  the  ground  that  the  requirement  of  the  written 
consent  of  the  owner  constituted  a  license,  since  without  such  con- 
sent the  dealer  was  considered  a  daily  violator  of  the  law;  and, 
furthermore,  because  it  made  the  right  legally  to  engage  in  the 
business  dependent  upon  the  will  of  the  owner  of  the  property  in 
which  it  was  conducted.2 

In  1886,  there  was  enacted  a  law  which  may  be  considered  one 


1  State  v.  Hipp,  38  O.  S.,  199. 

8  Butzman  v.  Whitbeck,  42  O.  S.,  223. 


4i2  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

of  the  principal  features  of  the  present  system  of  regulation. 

This  law  laid  a  tax  (since  increased  to  $1,000) 
Present  Ohio  Qn  th  busmess  an(j  provided  that  the  tax  should 
Liquor  Tax  Law 

operate  as  a  hen  upon  the  real  estate  on,  or  in, 

which  the  business  was  carried  on.  No  attempt  was  made  to  in- 
sist upon  the  payment  of  the  tax  before  engaging  in  the  business 
or  to  make  continuance  in  the  business  illegal  after  the  tax  became 
due.  The  law  has  been  upheld  by  the  supreme  court  in  a  num- 
ber of  decisions.  In  one  of  the  leading  cases  arising  under  the 
law  the  court  declared :  "  The  difference  between  a  tax  upon  a 
business  and  what  might  be  termed  a  license,  is,  that  the  former 
is  exacted  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  business  is  carried  on, 
and  the  latter  is  enacted  as  a  condition  precedent  to  the  right  to 
carry  it  on."  1 

In  another  case  the  court  said  regarding  this  law :  "  So  far  as 
we  can  perceive,  a  failure  to  pay  the  tax  no  more  renders  the 
trade  illegal  than  would  a  like  failure  of  a  farmer  to  pay  the  tax, 
on  his  farm  render  its  cultivation  illegal.  The  state  has  imposed 
the  tax  in  each  case,  and  made  such  provision  as  has  been  deemed 
needful  to  insure  its  payment;  but  it  has  not  seen  fit  to  make  the 
failure  to  pay  a  forfeiture  of  the  right  to  pursue  the  calling.  If 
the  tax  is  paid  the  traffic  is  lawful ;  but  if  not  paid  the  traffic  is 
equally  lawful."  2 

From  the  decisions  reviewed  it  is  clear  that  the  chief  effect  of 
the  anti-license  provision  of  the  Ohio  constitu- 
Types  of  Regu-  ^lon  ~1S  ^o  render  it  impossible  for  the  legislature 
,a  ™n , .  °*.  l  en  to  set  up  any  condition  precedent  to  engaging  or 
Provision  continuing  in  the  business  of  selling  intoxicating 

liquors.  As  specific  applications  of  the  general 
principle  any  such  regulations  as  the  following  are  probably  in- 
admissible : 

(1)  To  deny  any  person  the  right  to  engage  in  the  traffic  on 
account  of  personal  unfitness. 

(2)  To  prohibit  any  person  from  continuing  in  the  business  as 
a  penalty  for  the  violation  of  any  law  regulating  the  traffic.     In 
one  of  the  cases  already  cited,  the  court  declared  that  a  fine  im- 


1  Adler  v.  Whitbeck,  44  O.  S.,  559. 

2  Anderson  v.  B  raster,  44  O.  S.,  589. 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  413 

posed  upon  a  person  for  each  day  he  engaged  in  the  traffic  after 
default  in  payment  of  the  liquor  tax  was  unconstitutional  be- 
cause it  "  rendered  the  prosecution  of  the  business  to  an  extent 
illegal."  l  How  much  more  then,  would  a  law  be  invalid  which 
interdicted  the  traffic  entirely  to  one  who  violated  some  statutory 
provision. 

(3)  It  must  also  be  impossible  for  the  legislature  to  limit  di- 
rectly the  number  of  those  who  may  engage  in  the  traffic.  It  is 
true  that  the  courts  have  held  that  taxation  is  a  proper  method 
of  reducing  the  number  of  saloons.  That  method,  however, 
makes  no  discrimination  as  to  persons.  If  it  reduces  the  number 
of  saloons  it  is  as  a  result  of  the  economic  effect  of  making  the 
business  less  profitable.  To  place  a  definite  limit  on  the  number 
of  saloons  would  be  equivalent  to  saying  certain  persons  should 
not  enter  the  business,  and,  according  to  rulings  of  the  Ohio 
courts,  would  be  a  license  to  those  admitted  to  the  traffic. 

Enough  has  probably  been  said  to  indicate  the  extent  to  which 

regulation  of  the  liquor  traffic  is  restricted  by  the  anti-license 

section  of  the  Ohio  constitution.     Outside  the 

limitations  imposed  by  the  constitution,  regula- 
by  Local  Option 

tion  is  permissible  and  a  fairly  adequate  code 

relative  to  time,  manner  and  responsibility  for  sales  and  pro- 
hibiting selling  to  drunkards  and  minors  has  been  adopted.  How- 
ever, about  three  years  ago  the  progress  of  local  prohibition  sen- 
timent made  it  clear  even  to  the  obtuse  vision  of  the  brewers  that 
some  of  the  evils  of  the  retail  traffic  must  be  eliminated  if  great; 
inroads  on  the  business  were  to  be  prevented.  For  once  they 
were  willing  to  avail  themselves  of  the  assistance  of  the  law  in 
the  form  of  strict  regulation.  They  were  especially  anxious  to 
have  some  legal  means  provided  for  keeping  the  worst  char- 
acters out  of  the  business  and  for  the  elimination  of  the  unde- 
sirables already  engaged  in  it.  To  the  principle  of  limiting  the 
number  of  saloons  they  have  never  acceded.  It  was  when  roused 
to  the  necessity  of  better  legal  regulation  that  the  liquor  interests 
discovered  that  the  constitution  appeared  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  restrictions  on  the  traffic  which  they  wished  to  see  adopted. 
In  an  effort  to  accomplish  their  purposes,  without  contravening 

1  State  v.  Hipp,  38  O.  S.,  199. 


THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

the  constitutional  prohibition  of  license,  they  framed  and  se- 
cured the  passage  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  laws  in  the  an- 
nals of  liquor  legislation.  This  is  popularly  known  as  the  "  Dean 
Character  Law  ", l  a  statement  of  the  main  features  of  which 
follows. 

Every  year  the  assessors  of  personal  property  are  required  to 
return  to  the  county  auditor  upon  specially  prepared  blanks  a 
separate  statement  as  to  each  place  where  the  traffic  in  intoxi- 
cating liquors  is  conducted.  These  statements  must  show  the 
name  of  the  person,  corporation  or  co-partner- 
lne  .uean  ^  ^jp  engage(j  m  the  business,  together  with  an 

accurate  description  of  the  premises,  and  the 
name  of  the  owner  thereof,  where  it  is  carried  on.  This  state- 
ment must  be  signed  and  verified  before  the  assessor  by  the  per- 
son, etc.,  engaged  in  the  business.  Failure  to  furnish  the  requisite 
information  or  to  sign  and  verify  the  statement  increases  the  tax 
assessment  from  $1,000  to  $1,500,  and  failure  to  pay  this  amount 
when  due  entails  an  added  penalty  of  20  per  cent  of  the  total. 

However,  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  Dean  law  is  that 
portion  which  deals  with  the  character  of  those  engaged  in  the 
business  and  the  manner  in  which  the  traffic  is  carried  on.  Be- 
ginning June  1st,  the  law  required  that  the  statements  from  liquor 
dealers  should  also  contain  answers  to  the  following  questions, 
viz.: 

"  (i)  Are  you,  or  if  a  firm,  is  any  member  of  your  firm  an 
alien  or  an  unnaturalized  resident  of  the  United  states? 

"  (2)  Have  you,  or  any  member  of  your  firm  or  any  officer  of 
your  corporation,  ever  been  convicted  of  a  felony? 

"  (3)  Have  you,  within  the  past  twelve  months,  knowingly 
permitted  gambling  to  be  carried  on  in,  or  in  connection  with, 
your  place  of  business? 

"  (4)  Have  intoxicating  liquors  been  sold  at  your  place  of  busi- 
ness to  minors,  except  on  the  written  order  of  their  parents,  guar- 
dians or  family  physicians,  or  to  persons  intoxicated  or  in  the 
habit  of  getting  intoxicated,  within  the  last  twelve  months,  with 
your  knowledge  ? 

1  Act  of  March  12,  1909,  100  Laws  of  Ohio,  pp.  89-92.  The  separate 
sections  of  the  law  may  also  be  found  in  the  General  Code  of  Ohio,  1910, 
sees.  6081-6084,  6184-6192,  13219-13224. 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  415 

"  (5)  Have  you  knowingly  permitted  improper  females  to  visit 
your  place  of  business  within  the  last  twelve  months  ?  " 

Any  person  who  answers  any  of  these  questions  in  the  affirma- 
tive, or  refuses  to  answer  any  of  them,  or  to  sign  and  verify  them 
before  the  assessor,  who  thereafter  engages  in  the  business  of  fur- 
nishing or  giving  away  intoxicating  liquors  as  a  beverage,  is  guilty 
of  a  misdemeanor.  For  this  offense  he  may  be  fined  not  less  than 
$200  nor  more  than  $1,000,  or  imprisoned  not  less  than  six 
months  nor  more  than  two  years,  or  both.  Any  person  engaged 
in  the  liquor  business,  and  required  by  law  to  answer  these  ques- 
tions, who  makes  a  false  answer,  is  liable  to  a  fine  of  not  less  than 
$100  nor  more  than  $500,  or  to  imprisonment  from  three  months 
to  two  years,  or  both.  Moreover,  any  person  convicted  of  mak- 
ing a  false  statement  who  thereafter  engages  in  the  business  of 
selling  intoxicating  liquors  as  a  beverage  may  be  fined  from  $200 
to  $1,000,  or  imprisoned  from  six  months  to  two  years,  or  both. 

The  Dean  law  also  provides  for  the  abatement  as  a  nuisance  of 
any  saloon  conducted  in  a  disreputable  or  disorderly  manner. 
Proceedings  in  such  a  case  must  be  initiated  by  five  taxpayers, 
who  are  qualified  voters  of  the  municipal  corporation  where  the 
saloon  is  situated  and  who  have  resided  for  the  twelve  months 
prior  to  their  complaint  within  a  thousand  feet  of  the  offending 
place.  Trial  in  such  cases  of  abatement  must  be  by  jury,  if  the 
defendant  demands  it;  but  affirmative  answers  to  any  of  the 
above  questions  is  conclusive  proof  that  the  business  was  con- 
ducted in  a  disreputable  and  disorderly  manner. 

The  provision  already  cited  which  enables  county  prosecutors, 
in  counties  where  the  sale  of  liquor  is  prohibited,  to  appoint  secret 
service  officers  to  aid  in  the  discovery  of  evidence  against  vio- 
lators of  the  local  option  laws,  is  also  a  part  of  the  Dean  law. 

The  chief  purpose  of  this  law  is  to  evade  the  constitutional  pro- 

vision against  license  which  has  made  it  impossible  to  control  in 

any  adequate  manner  the  character  of  those  who 

Dean  Law  and       engage  in  the  saloon  business.    The  anti-saloon 

f°rces  daim  that  even  this  skilfullv  drawn  sta~ 


of  the 

OnioConrtitution  tute  wil1  not  stand  the  test  of  the  courts-    And 
it  must  be  admitted  that,  if  the  supreme  court 

follows  its  former  reasoning,  the  constitutionality  of  the  Dean 


416  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

law  is  extremely  doubtful.  If  the  legislature  could  not  lay  a  fine 
upon  persons  continuing  in  the  business  after  a  tax  assessed  upon 
it  became  due,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  courts  could  uphold  a 
measure  which  provides  a  penalty  of  fine  or  imprisonment  for 
one  who  continues  to  sell  intoxicating  liquor,  after  admitting  that 
he  has  at  some  time  been  convicted  of  a  felony,  etc.  In  the  light 
of  the  decisions  of  the  Ohio  supreme  court,  it  would  clearly  be 
proper  to  provide  any  reasonable  punishment  for  acts  done  in  the 
conduct  of  the  business.  But  to  declare  that  a  person  shall  be 
punished  for  continuing  in  the  business  seems  contrary  to  the 
spirit  and  reasoning  of  the  cases  which  have  been  reviewed.  As 
yet,  however,  the  Dean  law  has  not  been  brought  before  the 
courts  in  a  manner  to  test  its  constitutionality.  The  important 
question  at  the  present  time  is  as  to  its  efficacy  as  a  regulative 
measure. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  said  that  the  continual  assertion 
that  the  law  is  unconstitutional  has  deprived  it  of  considerable 
strength  in  actual  operation.     It  has  also  been 
subjected  to  constant  ridicule  by  the  radical  op- 
ponents of  the  liquor  traffic  who  sneer  at  it  as 
insincere  and  useless.     Moreover,  the  use  of  it  as  a  regulative 
measure  has,  so  far,  been  left  almost  entirely  to  the  liquor  in- 
terests.    The  Anti-Saloon  League  has,  up  to  the  present  time, 
taken  the  position  that  the  law  was  framed  by  the  liquor  interests, 
that  it  represented  their  idea  of  reform  and  that,  therefore,  the 
sincerity  of  this  desire  for  self-reformation  should  be  tested  by 
leaving  the  sponsors  for  the  law  to  enforce  it.    This  is  the  coun- 
terpart of  the  position  taken  by  the  liquor  interests  regarding  the 
enforcement  of  law  in  dry  territory,  i.  e.,  where  local  option 
begins,  the  duty  of  the  organized  liquor  interests  ends.     Each 
side  criticises  the  other  for  its  attitude  as  to  law  enforcement  and 
there  is  a  considerable  degree  of  justice  in  the  strictures  of  both. 
Under  these  unfavorable  circumstances  even  the  liquor  inter- 
ests are  not  enthusiastic  regarding  the  possibilities  of  the  Dean 
law.    None  the  less  I  believe  that  a  candid  view 
D  an  Law  °^  ^e  s^uat^on  must  lead  to  the  conclusion  that 

it  has  accomplished  some  good  results.    It  is  re- 
ported that  in  many  places  saloon  keepers,  fearing  this  law,  have 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  417 

abolished  wine  rooms,  excluded  disorderly  women,  suppressed 
gambling  and  exercised  more  care  regarding  the  sale  of  liquor 
to  minors.  With  the  constitutionality  of  the  law  established,  there 
is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  used  effectively  for  the  elimi- 
nation of  many  of  the  undesirable  features  of  the  saloon.  The 
possibility  of  evading  some  of  its  provisions,  however,  has  already 
been  made  apparent.  At  the  beginning  of  the  first  year  under  the 
law  more  than  seven  hundred  saloon  keepers,  on  account  of  their 
records,  had  some  other  member  of  the  family  or  a  barkeeper  pay 
the  liquor  tax  and  declare  ownership  of  the  saloon.  This  prac- 
tice will  be  difficult  to  avoid,  but  it  cannot  be  carried  on  indefi- 
nitely. So  far  as  the  future  conduct  of  saloon  keepers  is  con- 
cerned, a  thoroughgoing  enforcement  of  the  Dean  law  would 
seem  to  offer  great  promise  of  improvement.  But  as  with  most 
other  laws  the  question  of  enforcement  is  a  vital  one.  So  long 
as  the  Ohio  Brewers  Association  finds  it  to  the  interest  of  the 
trade  to  insist  upon  some  regard  being  paid  to  the  law,  it  will  be 
more  or  less  useful.  If  the  enthusiasm  of  the  brewers  for  the  law 
wanes  the  Anti-Saloon  League  might  use  it  with  powerful  effect 
against  those  who  fathered  it.  Also  in  communities  where  there 
is  an  active  law-enforcement  organization  the  statute  could  be 
given  considerable  vitality.  However,  without  some  outside  stim- 
ulus, it  is  probable  that  the  Dean  law  would  not  be  actively  en- 
forced in  many  localities  unless  there  were  a  strong  general  sen- 
timent demanding  it. 

With  its  well-developed  system  of  local  option,  the  Dean  law 
and  other  regulative  measures,  Ohio  compares  favorably  with 
most  states  as  to  the  wisdom  of  its  liquor  policy.  One  defect, 
already  pointed  out,  is  likely  to  be  found  in  the  county  option  law 
when  applied  to  counties  containing  large  cities.  Unfortunately 
any  change  in  the  law  with  a  view  to  remedying  that  difficulty 
would  probably  have  to  exempt  municipalities  of  all  sizes  from, 
the  effects  of  a  county  option  vote  in  order  to  evade  constitutional 
objections.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  practical  administration 
of  local  option  laws,  there  is  no  objection  to  compelling  cities  of 
moderate  size  to  sink  their  individuality  in  that  of  the  county. 
It  is  only  when  the  city  is  large  that  it  must  of  necessity  remain 
the  dominant  factor  in  matters  of  local  government  that  the 
county  unit  for  local  option  voting  becomes  dangerous. 


4i8  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

Probably  the  greatest  defect  of  the  present  Ohio  system  lies  in 
the  impossibility  of  placing  any  check  upon  the  multiplication  of 
saloons.    The  interpretation  placed  on  the  anti- 
Impossibility  of     license  clause  of  the  constitution  permits  any 

Reducing  person  to  engage  in  the  retail  liquor  business 

Number  of  *  ,       .  .     , 

S  1  ons  practically  the  same  freedom  as  m  farm- 

ing. Doubtless  the  tax  of  $1,000  has  had  some 
influence  in  reducing  the  number  of  saloons,  but  on  the  other 
hand,  the  effect  of  heavy  taxation  has  been  counterbalanced  by 
the  exclusion  of  saloons  from  large  portions  of  the  state  and 
their  concentration  in  the  larger  cities.  For  example,  Cleveland, 
with  560,000  population,  has  between  1,900  and  2,000  places  pay- 
ing the  liquor  tax — in  others  words,  a  saloon  for  every  280  or  290 
of  the  population.  •  Half  that  number,  properly  distributed,  would 
be  ample  for  supplying  all  reasonable  demands.  With  the  heavy 
tax  and  sharp  competition,  the  saloon  keeper  is  frequently  hard 
pressed  to  make  ends  meet.  He  is  for  this  reason  tempted  to 
add  to  his  income  by  linking  the  sale  of  liquor  with  gambling 
and  the  social  evil  and  by  selling  to  drunkards  and  minors. 

The  undue  multiplication  of  saloons  in  Ohio,  as  elsewhere,  is 
largely  the  result  of  competition  among  the  brewers.  It  is  the 
brewers,  therefore,  who  are  chiefly  responsible  for  the  low  class 
saloon.  This  being  true,  it  seems  strange  that  they  have  not  en- 
deavored to  place  some  restriction  on  the  number  of  retailers 
by  mutual  agreement.  Only  an  unusual  degree  of  obtuseness  can 
have  prevented  them  from  adopting  such  an  expedient  as  a  mere 
matter  of  business  policy.  The  disreputable  saloon  is  one  of  the 
strongest  arguments  for  local  prohibition,  and  under  local  option 
it  is  beer  that  comes  nearest  to  complete  exclusion.  The  traffic 
in  distilled  liquors  can  and  does  remain  a  fairly  profitable  busi- 
ness in  dry  territory. 

The  situation  of  the  brewer  is  so  anomalous  as  to  be  amusing. 
The  saloon  in  America  is  practically  a  brewers'  institution,  and  is 
the  chief  objective  in  the  campaign  against  the 
Awkward  evjjs  of  the  ijquor  traffic.    Yet  as  compared  with 

Position  of  the        «•  ..-,,    ,      •  .,     ,  ,  .,  r  «  ., 

•r.    .  distilled  spirits,  beer  contributes  but  slightly  to 

•Brewers 

intemperance.  The  commercial  greed  of  indi- 
vidual brewers  has  placed  the  brewing  interests  in  the  awkward 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND 'HATTON  419 

position  of  standing  sponsor  for  the  other  undesirable  features  of 
the  saloon  business  which  are  incidental  and  wholly  indefensible. 
Many  people  who  would  otherwise  regard  the  selling  and  con- 
sumption of  beer  with  some  tolerance,  turn  against  it  because 
gambling  and  prostitution  seem  to  be  a  necessary  adjunct  of  the 
retail  traffic.  Under  a  system  of  heavy  taxation,  such  as  exists 
in  Ohio,  it  will  always  be  difficult  to  eliminate  those  features  with- 
out strict  limitation  of  the  number  of  saloons.  If  this  cannot  be 
secured  by  law,  mere  business  acumen  would  seem  to  dictate  that 
an  attempt  should  be  made  to  bring  it  about  by  the  brewers  them- 
selves. 

This  is  in  no  sense  a  brief  for  the  brewers  or  an  argument 
for  the  drinking  of  beer.  The  writer  has  a  very  firm  conviction 
that  the  habitual  use  of  beer  is  physically  injurious  and  eco- 
nomicaly  wasteful.  But  as  between  beer  and  stronger  dis- 
tilled liquors  there  is  a  difference  in  capacity  for  harm  that  is 
enormous.  Under  pressure  of  the  vigorous  attack  on  the  liquor 
traffic  the  brewers  can,  and  possibly  will,  free  the  saloon  from 
many  of  the  disreputable  features  that  have  attached  themselves 
to  it.  In  order  to  accomplish  this  they  may,  in  time,  see  the  wis- 
dom of  placing  a  limit  upon  the  number  of  persons  in  each  city 
who  will  be  permitted  to  sell  their  product. 

Assuming  that  the  saloon  can  be  freed  from  the  debasing  para- 
sitic features  that  so  often  attach  themselves  to  it  the  original, 
and  chief,  objection  to  the  liquor  traffic  would 

still  remain — the  evil  of  intemperance.  With 
Intemperance  V  . 

reference  to  this  also  the  brewer  is  in  an  unnec- 
essarily awkward  position.  For  although  the  saloon  is  a  brewers' 
institution  and  is  responsible  for  many  of  the  evils  arising  from 
the  use  of  intoxicating  drink,  yet  a  relatively  small  percentage 
of  those  evils  can  be  attributed  to  beer.  If,  under  local  option, 
the  saloon  is  voted  out  of  a  district  or  city  owing  to  the  evils  of 
intemperance  it  is  the  brewers'  product  that  is  chiefly  affected. 
Beer  is  too  bulky  to  be  shipped  readily  into  dry  territory.  For 
the  same  reason  it  does  not  lend  itself  readily  to  illicit  sell- 
ing. On  the  other  hand,  the  distilled  liquor  interests,  whose  pro- 
duct is  chiefly  responsible  for  the  grosser  evils  and,  hence,  for  the 
anti-liquor  crusade,  are  always  able  to  save  a  considerable  rem- 


420  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

nant  of  their  business.  Under  these  circumstances  one  is  led  to 
wonder  that  the  brewers  have  not  shown  more  disposition  to  free 
themselves  from  the  inconvenient  association  with  the  whiskey 
interests.  As  things  now  are  the  brewers  do  most  of  the  fighting 
and  suffer  most  of  the  loss  in  a  warfare  precipitated  by  evils  for 
which  beer  is  only  in  a  moderate  degree  responsible. 

The  most  commendable  feature  of  the  Ohio  system  of  no 
license  is  that  there  can  be  no  political  complications  surrounding 
entrance  into  the  business.     This  is,  of  course, 
Anti-License          not  dependent  on  the  anti-license  provision  of 
Provision  of  the  constitutjon-    if  ieft  to  the  discretion  of  the 

Constitution  .  , 

No  Benefit  legislature    the    same    plan    could    have    been 

adopted.  If  it  were  possible  to  join  with  such  a 
system  a  measure  restricting  the  number  of  places  permitted  to 
carry  on  the  traffic,  together  with  a  plan  for  excluding  persons 
from  the  business  who  failed  to  conduct  it  properly,  something 
like  an  ideal  scheme  of  regulation  would  result.  There  would 
be  serious  practical  difficulties  to  be  overcome  in  working  out 
such  a  plan  under  any  circumstances.  In  Ohio,  owing  to  the  anti- 
license  clause  of  the  constitution,  a  provision  limiting  the  number 
of  saloons  and  probably  the  other  suggestion  as  well,  would  be  im- 
possible. On  the  whole,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  benefit  Ohio 
has  derived  from  the  constitutional  provision  against  license. 
Everything  in  the  present  system  of  regulation  could  be  pro- 
cured without  it,  while  many  valuable  restrictions  are  by  it  made 
impossible. 

It  remains  to  speak  briefly  of  present  conditions  in  those  places 

in  Ohio  where  the  saloon  exists  and  of  the  outlook  in  the  liquor 

struggle.     On  the  whole,  the  impartial  investi- 

r.a  °?^-  gator  is  likely  to  reach  the  conclusion  that  there 

Conditions  }   . , 

in  Ohio  "as   "een   considerable  improvement  in   saloon 

conditions  in  the  state  during  the  last  few  years. 
This  has  been  due  principally,  no  doubt,  to  the  wholesome  fear 
instilled  into  the  liquor  interests  by  the  successes  of  the  anti- 
saloon  movement.  Improvement  has  become  a  matter  of  self- 
preservation. 

For  over  three  years  the  Ohio  Brewers'  Association  has  sup- 
ported a  vigilance  bureau,  the  avowed  object  of  which  is  to  elimi- 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  421 

nate  disreputable  and  obnoxious  saloons.    This  bureau  has  been 
liberally  supplied  with  funds  and  has  by  quiet, 

persistent  work  brought  about  great  improve- 
Vigilance  Bureau  *  .°      .       * 

ment  in  the  saloons  of  many  cities  of  the  state. 

There  is,  of  course,  nothing  philanthropic  about  this  work.  The 
purpose  of  the  bureau  is,  by  removing  features  of  the  liquor 
traffic  which  arouse  public  resentment,  to  save  the  business  from 
further  inroads  by  the  anti-liquor  forces.  Indeed  one  gets  the 
impression  that  the  bureau  adjusts  its  demands  upon  the  saloon 
keeper  with  considerable  nicety  so  as  to  secure  just  that  degree 
of  improvement  that  will  leave  the  public  satisfied.1  This  is  well 
illustrated  by  its  attitude  toward  the  Sunday-closing  law.  In 
general  it  is  favorable  to  an  open  Sunday,  because  it  means  tha 
sale  of  more  beer.  However,  in  communities  where  public  sen- 
timent is  shocked  by  saloons  open  on  Sunday,  the  bureau  insists 
that  the  saloons  be  closed.  This  represents  a  kind  of  local  option 
which  is  both  amusing  and  interesting. 

The  policy  of  the  bureau  is  to  attempt  to  secure  the  desired 
changes  by  bringing  pressure  to  bear  upon  the  saloon  keeper.  If 
this  does  not  succeed,  appeal  is  made  to  the  local  authorities. 
Failing  to  get  relief  in  this  manner,  the  bureau  sometimes  under- 
takes the  prosecution  itself.  The  brewers,  it  is  needless  to  say, 
are  not  anxious  to  eliminate  a  saloon  unless  it  is  absolutely  nec- 
essary. In  a  few  cases,  however,  when  all  other  attempts  to  re- 
form an  offending  saloon  have  failed,  the  bureau  has  circulated 
residence  district  petitions  and  thus  created  dry  territory. 

At  the  present  time  there  are  indications  that  the  wave  of  pro- 
hibition which  has  swept  over  Ohio  has  reached  its  maximum.  In 
fact,  it  will  require  strenuous  work  for  the  anti- 
saloon  forces  to  retain  all  that  they  have  gained. 
Two  great  struggles  are  looming  in  the  near 
future.  One  will  take  place  in  the  General  Assembly  which 
meets  in  January,  1911,  when  an  effort  will  be  made  to  repeal 
or  alter  the  county  option  law.  It  is  currently  reported  that  the 
legislature  elected  in  November,  1910,  is  liberal.  If  this  is  true, 
the  county  option  law  will  almost  surely  be  repealed  or,  at  least, 

1  In  fairness  it  should  be  said  that  the  bureau  has  uniformly  opposed 
gambling,  wine  rooms  and  the  presence  of  disorderly  women  in  saloons. 


422  THE  LIQUOR  SITUATION  IN  OHIO 

amended  so  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  cities  to  be  carried  dry 
by  outside  votes.  The  other  contest  will  carry  the  liquor  ques- 
tion into  the  constitutional  convention  which  is  to  meet  within  the 
next  two  years.  There  an  effort  will  doubtless  be  made  to  insert 
a  provison  in  the  new  constitution  for  state-wide  prohibition, 
while  the  old  conflict  over  the  retention  or  elimination  of  the  anti- 
license  section  will  be  fought  out  anew. 

Thus  the  struggle  goes  on,  in  Ohio  as  elsewhere,  to  what  end  no 
one  can  definitely  forsee.  There  is,  however,  this  much  of  cer- 
tainty: It  will  continue  until  some  satisfactory  adjustment  is 
reached.  Meantime  the  deepest  interests  of  society  demand  that 
strong,  sane,  public-spirited  men  and  women  devote  themselves 
unsparingly  to  the  solution  of  this  tremendous  and  persistent 
social  problem. 


Some  Political  Phases  of  the  Liquor 
Problem  in  Chicago. 

By  PROFESSOR  F.  D.  BRAMHALL, 

University  of  Chicago. 

This  paper  does  not  pretend  to  offer  a  solution  of  the  liquor 
question  in  Chicago,  nor  of  those  important  phases  of  it  which 
are  necessarily  political.  It  does  not  even  attempt  to  describe 
in  detail  the  organization  of  the  opposing  forces  and  their  ramifi- 
cations, though  that  would  be  a  study  well  worth  the  attention 
of  the  National  Municipal  League.  It  does  try  to  present  the 
main  issues  and  organizations  in  the  field  from  the  point  of  view 
of  those  who  have  joined  neither  the  prohibitionists  nor  the 
"  personal  liberty  "  forces,  but  who  are  nevertheless  interested  in 
making  Chicago  as  wholesome  and  beautiful  and  free  a  place  as 
possible  for  themselves  to  live  in  to-day,  and  a  better  place  for 
their  children  to  live  in  to-morrow.  The  writer  believes  that  such 
persons  do  not  find  in  the  present  formulation  of  the  issues  any- 
thing hopeful  for  the  solution  of  the  saloon  problem;  but  that, 
on  the  contrary,  the  existence  of  the  warfare  on  its  present  lines 
is  to-day  one  of  the  most  serious  obstacles  to  the  improvement 
of  conditions  in  Chicago  in  any  other  direction.  Sooner  or  later, 
and  the  sooner  the  better,  the  present  uncompromising  and  irrecon- 
cilable demands  of  the  two  well-organized  and  determined  armies 
must  in  the  name  of  the  progress  of  the  city  in  decency  and  effi- 
ciency, be  resolved. 

To  appreciate  the  issues  and  parties  of  to-day  it  is  necessary 
to  look  back  a  moment.  The  State  of  Illinois,  like  other  states, 
has  had  general  Sunday  laws  since  its  early  days ; 
Law  Afferent  only  in  that  they  made  punishable,  not 
Sunday  labor  and  business  in  general,  but  only 
the  annoyance  of  others  by  Sunday  labor.  There  has  also  been, 
since  at  least  1826,  a  specific  prohibition  of  the  opening  of 
tippling  houses  on  Sunday.  Before  the  fifties,  there  seems  to 

(423) 


424  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

have  been  no  serious  saloon  question  in  Chicago.  Under  its 
charter  power  to  regulate  the  sale  of  liquor  and  issue  licenses, 
the  city  had  provided  that  dram  shops  should  be  closed  on  Sun- 
day. In  the  forties  the  immigration  from  New  England,  New 
York  and  Ohio  had  come,  and  had  brought  a  somewhat  stricter 
moral  code  than  the  earlier  frontier  village,  composed  principally 
of  Kentuckians  and  Canadians,  had  had.  About  1850,  however, 
came  the  great  change  which  still  largely  determines  the  form 
of  the  saloon  question  in  Chicago :  the  sudden  and  tremendous 
growth  of  population,  made  up  largely  of  foreign  immigrants. 
The  city  administration  was  weak  and  crime  and  disorder  in- 
creased with  the  population;  the  result  was  the  complication  of 
the  question  of  law  enforcement  with  the  wholly  irrational  native- 
American  movement,  the  election  in  1855  of  a  "  Know-nothing  " 
mayor,  a  brief  period  of  turbulence,  followed  by  the  election  of 
an  "  easy  "  mayor  and  a  return  to  practically  the  conditions  before 
the  outbreak.  For  the  next  sixteen  years,  which  include  the 
war  time,  the  liquor  question  was  in  the  background,  and  then 
came  prominently  to  the  fore  that  phase  of  it  which  has  caused 
constant  and  fruitless  turmoil  ever  since,  the  Sunday  question. 

The  catastrophe  of  1871  broke  down  party  lines  for  the  mo- 
ment and  brought  about  the  election  of  a  citizen's  or  "  fire-proof  " 

ticket  headed  by  Joseph  Medill,  and  pledged  to 
e    un  ay  a  generaj  reform  of  the  administrative  looseness 

which  the  fire  had  revealed.  Mayor  Medill  un- 
dertook to  enforce  the  Sunday  closing  ordinance  with  the  almost 
complete  wreck  of  his  administration  as  a  consequence.  The  en- 
suing campaign  was  fought  practically  on  the  single  issue  of  Sun- 
day closing,  and  the  verdict  was  unmistakable.  The  new  mayor 
in  his  inaugural  used  expressions  which,  with  very  slight  change, 
might  come  from  almost  any  of  his  successors  to  the  present 
day :  "  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  those  ordinances,  how  much 
soever  they  may  have  been  in  consonance  with  the  public  opinion 
of  a  comparatively  small  and  homogeneous  population  at  the  time 
of  their  enactment,  have  ceased  to  be  so,  since  Chicago  has  by 
the  harmonious  co-operation  of  citizens  belonging  to  different 
nationalities  grown  from  a  village  to  the  rank  of  one  of  the 
greatest  cities  of  the  world.  For  a  series  of  years  it  has  been 


F.  D.  BRAMHALL  425 

the  practice  of  our  municipal  administration  to  treat  those  ordi- 
nances as  '  obsolete '  and  to  refrain  from  enforcing  them.  It  is 
not  intended  to  denounce  that  practice,  but  merely  to  state  that 
within  the  last  year  it  has  become  listasteful  to  a  large  portion 
of  the  community."  He  then  proceeded  to  recommend  the  repeal 
of  the  Sunday  closing  ordinance;  and  this  was  done  on  March 
16,  1874,  the  council  merely  substituting  the  requirement  that  on 
Sunday  front  doors  be  kept  closed  and  shutters  drawn.  This 
ordinance  is  still  a  part  of  the  revised  ordinances  of  Chicago. 

In  regard  to  the  legal  effect  of  this  action  at  the  time  and  after- 
ward, there  has  been  considerable  controversy,  upon  the  merits 
of  which  it  is  not  necessary  for  our  purpose  to  pass  judgment. 
Certainly  it  left  no  penalty  imposed  by  the  city  itself  for  Sunday 
liquor  selling;  but  the  state  law  still,  as  it  had  since  before  1826, 
forbade  it  and  prescribed  a  punishment.  The  opponents  of  Sun- 
day closing  have  maintained  that  the  state  law  did  not  apply  in 
a  city  under  a  special  charter,  as  Chicago  was,  having  authority 
to  regulate  liquor  selling.  However  this  may  have  been  in  1874, 
the  question  was  still  further  complicated  in  1875  when  Chicago 
abandoned  its  special  charter  and  came  under  the  general  Cities 
and  Villages  Act.  This  act  provided  that  ordinances  not  in  con-- 
flict  with  state  law  should  continue  in  force;  and  the  opponents 
of  Sunday  closing  assert  that  the  ordinance  of  1874  was  not  in 
conflict  with  state  law  at  the  time  of  passage  nor  at  the  time  of 
the  adoption  of  the  act  and  therefore  continued  in  force.  I  re- 
peat that  it  is  not  necessary  for  our  purpose  to  determine  the 
correctness  of  this  assertion,  since,  whether  it  be  true  or  not,  the 
opponents  of  Sunday  closing  would  still  be  opponents  of  Sunday 
closing.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  the  prominence  of  this 
legal  argument  is  somewhat  due  to  the  Illinois  provision  that  the 
jury  is  judge  both  of  law  and  fact,  and  the  desirability  therefore 
of  having  a  legal  argument  upon  which  juries  may  refuse  to  con- 
vict persons  who  sell  liquor  on  Sunday.  It  is  also  an  evidence 
that  what  Mayor  Colvin  said  in  1873  is  still  true :  that  it  is  "  dis- 
tasteful to  a  large  portion  of  the  community  "  to  feel  that  the 
Sunday  privileges  rest  on  a  clear  violation  of  law. 

From  1874  to  1904  there  is  no  new  feature  significant  for  the 
present  situation.  The  period  was  marked  by  the  five  adminis- 


426  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

trations  of  the  elder  Carter  Harrison  and  the  four  of  the  younger , 
and  whatever  merits  the  two  Carter  Harrisons 

Lnicago  Law  and.  ^    i    acjminist;rative  efficiency  and  rigorous  law 

Order  League 

enforcement   were   not   among   them.      In   the 

spring  of  1904,  however,  a  fight  over  the  midnight  closing  ordi- 
nance brought  into  existence  one  of  the  vigorous  and  alert  or- 
ganizations now  composing  the  anti-saloon  army.  That  ordi- 
nance had  not  been  regularly  enforced,  though  there  was  no 
definite  assurance,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Sunday  law,  that  it  would 
not  be;  and  in  March,  1904,  a  German  alderman  introduced  an 
ordinance  for  its  repeal.  I  have  been  unable  to  find  evidence 
as  to  whether  he  was  supported  extensively  by  the  sentiment  of 
the  foreign  populations,  or  mainly  by  liquor  dealers.  At  any 
rate  the  proposal  roused  an  immediate  opposition  from  those  who 
had  been  resolutely  and  actively  insisting  on  an  honest  attempt 
to  enforce  not  only  this  ordinance  as  it  stood,  but  other  saloon 
regulations,  including  the  Sunday  closing  laws.  They  organized 
themselves  as  the  Chicago  Law  and  Order  League.  The  result 
of  their  first  struggle  was  a  substantial  victory,  in  the  form  of  a 
compromise,  the  closing  hour  being  extended  only  from  12  to  I 
o'clock.  The  League,  together  with  the  Illinois  Anti-Saloon 
League,  organized  in  the  summer  of  1898  as  a  branch  of  the  mili- 
tant national  organization,  form  the  active  forces  in  Chicago 
working  for  the  restriction  and  abolition  of  saloons. 

Two  years  later  there  was  organized  on  the  other  side  prob- 
ably the  most  powerful  defensive  organization  which  has  ap- 
peared in  any  city  in  the  country,  and  one  which  makes  the 
Chicago  situation  unique:  the  United  Societies  for  Local  Self- 
Government.  The  circumstances  of  its  origin  must  be  briefly 
noticed.  In  the  spring  of  1906  a  series  of  shocking  events  con- 
nected with  allnight  dances,  in  connection  with  which  liquor  was 
sold,  attracted  public  attention  and  led  to  a  grand  jury  investiga- 
tion. In  the  course  of  it  doubt  was  cast  on  the  power  of  the 
mayor  to  issue  "  special  bar  permits  "  under  par.  117  of  the  Re- 
vised Code,  which  for  ten  years  or  more  had  authorized  the  sell- 
ing of  liquor  under  such  circumstances.  These  were  one-night 
permits,  without  restriction  of  hours,  issued  usually  for  Saturday 
or  Sunday  night  on  application  one  or  two  days  in  advance  and 


F.  D.  BRAMHALL  427 

the  payment  of  a  nominal  fee.  Mayor  Dunne,  on  being  questioned 
by  the  grand  jury,  on  the  ist  of  March  agreed  to  issue  no  more 
such  permits  until  the  matter  was  settled.  Instantly  there  was 
loud  and  vigorous  protest  from  a  large  number  of  foreign  so- 
cieties, which  had  been  accustomed  to  holding  dances  and  fes- 
tivals at  which  beer  was  served  under  these  permits.  Here  it 
should  definitely  be  pointed  out  that  this  protest  came  from  an 
interest  wholly  distinct  from  that  of  the  low  dance  halls  in  the 
"  red  light "  district  whose  outrageous  abuses  had  brought  about 
the  issue;  and  it  should  be  added  that  it  is  most  deplorable  that 
neither  the  law-abiding  part  of  the  foreign  societies  nor  the  re- 
formers whose  indignation  was  absolutely  righteous  found  any 
way  to  separate  the  two  groups  opposing  the  cutting  off  of  special 
bar  permits.  The  foreign  societies  thought  they  saw  in  the  pres- 
ent movement  an  attempt  of  puritans  to  interfere  in  an  irritating 
way  with  their  established  privileges  and  customs ;  they  foresaw 
a  general  "  blue  law  "  movement  led  by  the  same  persons  who 
were  so  uncompromisingly  demanding  Sunday  closing  and  total 
prohibition.  It  need  not  be  said  that  there  were  strong  incentives 
for  the  brewers  and  liquor  dealers  to  foster  that  fear  and  make 
the  most  of  it;  but  the  fear  was  there,  and  represented  some- 
thing other  than  the  interests  of  lawlessness  and  debauchery,  or 
the  financial  interests  of  the  traffic.  A  great  parade  of  all  nation- 
alities was  organized  as  a  display  of  strength,  followed  by  a  mass 
meeting  in  the  First  Regiment  Armory,  at  which  the  rights  of 
"personal  liberty"  were  extolled,  and  united  resistance  against  in- 
terference was  urged.  The  work  of  organization  was  skilfully 
prosecuted,  and  by  the  middle  of  June  was  thoroughly  completed, 
and  the  United  Societies  formally  launched.  At  just  about  the 
same  time  the  city  council  passed  a  new  ordinance  authorizing 
special  bar  permits  practically  in  the  form  demanded  by  the  new 
organization.  Since  that  time  the  United  Societies  have  fought 
the  battle  of  the  defensive  interests. 

What,  now,  is  the  form  of  organization  of  the  two  sides,  their 
program,  and  their  method  of  action? 

i.  The  attack.    The  prohibition  party  may  be 

dismissed  with  the  statement  that  it  represents  a 

declaration  of  principles  without  any  expectation  of  immediate 


428  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

or  proximate  success.  It  casts  a  vote  in  Chicago  ranging  from 
5,000  to  6,000  in  a  total  of  about  400,000.  The  Anti-Saloon 
League  is  the  representative  of  prohibitionists  who  are  "out 
to  win."  It  is  a  branch  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America. 
It  has  no  individual  members  but  relies  for  its  support  largely 
on  church  organizations,  and  is  maintained  by  contributions, 
largely  through  churches,  from  persons  who  believe  in  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  liquor  business  by  law.  It  nominates  no  candidates  of 
its  own  for  any  office,  but  investigates  those  of  other  parties  and 
indorses  or  opposes  them  as  they  support  or  oppose  the  policy  of 
prohibition  or  local  option.  It  is  consequently,  unlike  the  Prohibi- 
tion party  frankly  opportunist,  and  will  co-operate  with  anyone 
who  will  co-operate  with  it  upon  its  platform.  There  is  already 
in  Illinois  a  local  option  law  for  townships  and  cities;  the  pro- 
gram of  the  League  is  therefore  resistance  to  any  impairment  of 
that  law,  the  carrying  of  towns  and  cities  for  no-license  under  it, 
and  the  immediate  passage  of  a  county  option  law. 

The  Law  and  Order  League  is  of  a  somewhat  different  char- 
acter. The  liquor  question  is  not  its  only  interest  and  it  does 
valuable  work  in  other  directions.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that 
the  liquor  question  was  the  cause  of  its  origin  and  is  its  most 
prominent  field  of  activity.  Like  the  Anti-Saloon  League  it  has 
no  membership,  and  rests  principally,  but  not  wholly,  on  church 
support.  Its  program  is  uncompromising  enforcement  of  the  law 
as  it  stands ;  but  its  leaders  also  oppose  the  relaxation  of  existing 
legal  restrictions.  For  our  purpose  the  principal  part  of  its  pro- 
gram is  the  maintenance  and  enforcement  of  the  Sunday-closing 
law. 

2.  The  defense.  The  United  Societies  for  Local  Self-Govern- 
ment  have  an  elaborate  federal  organization.  They  comprise 
to-day  704  separate  foreign  societies,  principally  German,  Bo- 
hemian, Polish  and  Italian,  with  some  Danish,  Croatian  and  mis- 
cellaneous. They  are  mainly  singing  societies,  turner  societies, 
mutual  benefit  and  social  clubs  and  lodges,  a  few  trade-union 

locals  and  a  very  few  local  saloon  keepers'  or- 
The  Defense  it_  , 

gamzafaons.  Altogether  they  claim  a  member- 
ship of  186,000.  Here  evidently  the  saloon  question  becomes  a 
part  of  the  question  of  the  immigrant,  which  Miss  Abbott  has 


F.  D.  BRAMHALL 


429 


discussed  this  morning.  One  cannot  appreciate  the  difficulties 
of  the  problem  in  the  least  without  remembering  the  oft-repeated 
statement  that  out  of  every  hundred  persons  in  Chicago  about  73 
are  either  foreign  born  or  have  foreign-born  parents ;  that  35  out 
of  every  hundred  men,  women  and  children  were  actually  born 
in  foreign  countries.  Of  course  the  proportion  of  foreigners 
among  adult  men,  with  whom  we  are  almost  exclusively  con- 
cerned, is  very  much  greater.  Almost  all  of  them  are  accustomed 
to  regard  recreation  on  Sunday  and  the  free  drinking  of  beer  and 
wine  as  without  the  least  implication  of  immorality. 

Every  society  in  the  United  Societies  elects  delegates,  one  for 
every  hundred  members  or  fraction  thereof;  the  delegates  meet 
monthly  in  convention  in  four  grand  divisions  of  the  city — the 
North  Side,  the  West  Side,  the  Southwest  Side  and  the  South 
Side.  These  conventions  elect  members  of  the  executive  board, 
now  composed  of  104  members.  The  executive  board  elects  the 
officers :  a  president,  one  vice-president  for  each  nationality,  a 
secretary,  a  treasurer,  a  financial  secretary  and  an  organizer ;  and 
appoints  also  three  principal  committees,  which  together  consti- 
tute the  committee  on  political  action.  Their  financial  support 
comes  nominally  from  contributions  from  the  constituent  so- 
cieties; actually  a  great  deal  of  it  comes  undoubtedly  from  the 

brewery  and  liquor  interests.     Their  method  is 
The  United  like  that    f  th    Anti-Saloon  League  in  that  they 

Societies  .      * 

endorse  or  oppose  candidates,  on  the  basis  of 

their  adhesion  or  refusal  to  adhere  to  the  platform  of  the  So- 
cieties. Their  purposes  are  stated  by  themselves  in  their  consti- 
tution in  very  broad  and  general  language: 

"  Sec.  i :  The  object  for  which  this  organization  is  formed  shall 
be  the  protection  of  every  citizen  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  all  the 
personal  rights  and  liberties  guaranteed  to  him  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  State  of  Illinois. 

"  Sec.  2 :  In  order  to  promote  this  object  it  is  its  purpose, 
among  other  things,  to  procure  from  the  general  assembly  of  the 
State  of  Illinois  the  repeal  of  all  laws  not  in  accord  with  these 
principles  an  1  the  enactment  of  such  laws  as  will  conform  there- 
with. 

"  Sec.  3 :  Such  proposed  laws  shall  grant  to  cities,  towns  and 
villages  in  the  largest  measure  the  power  of  local  self-govern- 


430  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

ment  in  harmony  with  and  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  majority 
of  the  citizens  thereof. 

"  Sec.  4 :  Among  other  things  such  laws  shall  secure  to  the 
urban  communities  of  the  State  the  grant  of  local  option  in  re- 
gard to  the  legal  observance  of  the  weekly  day  of  rest  and  the 
proper  regulation  of  social  or  popular  recreation  and  amuse- 
ment." 

Practically,  however,  their  position  is  a  negative  one ;  resistance 
to  restrictions  upon  the  sale  of  alcoholic  drinks. 

Is  the  program  of  either  side  a  practicable  one?  Let  us  look 
first  at  the  aggressive  forces  of  reform. 

Can  the  state  Sunday-closing  law  be  enforced  in  Chicago? 
The  question  is,  let  it  be  remembered,  whether  acts  not  regarded 
as  wrong  by  a  considerable  and  self-conscious  part  of  the  com- 
munity, can  be  punished  in  pursuance  of  a  law  not  self-imposed, 
and  for  a  generation  and  a  half  declared  by  the  local  government 
to  be  obsolete.  There  is  here  no  question  of  the  enforcement 
of  an  ordinary  criminal  law;  in  such  cases  no  considerable 
group  of  men  deliberately  violate  the  law  without  the  conscious- 
ness of  wrong-doing  and  lawlessness.  Enforcement  of  state  law 
in  Illinois  is  entirely  in  the  hands  of  locally-elected  officers,  over 
whom  the  state  administration  has  no  means  of  control.  The 
history  of  the  question  in  Chicago  points  to  the  conclusion  that 
a  program  based  on  the  bare  uncompromising  demand  that  the 
existing  local  authorities  enforce  the  Sunday-closing  law  is  an 
impracticable  program.  Those  who  believe  that  saloons  should 
be  closed  on  Sunday  might  reasonably  do  either  of  two  things. 
They  might  insist  that  since  the  State  of  Illinois  has  laid  down 
Sunday  closing  as  a  principle,  it  should  in  all  honesty  take  prac- 
tical measures  for  carrying  that  principle  into  execution,  by  pro- 
viding the  necessary  state  machinery  for  the  di- 
^  egis  a _ive  rect  execution  of  ^g  jaw  by  jts  Qwn  officers  or 

±  our-flusning  .  .  ' 

for  the  supervision  and  control  of  the  local  offi- 
cers in  whose  hands  it  is  left.  The  state  has  had  public  notice  at 
least  since  1874  that  Chicago  was  not  enforcing  the  law  and  did 
not  intend  to ;  it  hardly  indicates  absolute  sincerity  on  the  part  of 
the  legislature  that  it  has  ever  since  refused  to  repeal  the  law 
and  has  failed  to  provide  for  its  execution.  It  has  rather  a  sug- 


F.  D.  BRAMHALL 


431 


gestion  of  what  Carter  Harrison  once  picturesquely  denounced  as 
"  legislative  four-flushing  ".  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  be- 
lieve in  Sunday  closing  might  frankly  abandon  the  unenforced 
state  law  as  a  basis  of  action,  consent  to  its  repeal,  as  regards 
Chicago,  and  to  a  grant  of  power  to  the  city  to  regulate  the 
matter  for  itself.  This  step  would,  of  course,  mean  that  for  some 
time  there  would  be  no  Sunday-closing  law,  but  it  would  not 
mean  that  there  would  be  any  less  Sunday  closing.  It  would 
mean  the  abandonment  of  an  unprofitable  outpost,  and  the  shift- 
ing of  the  attack  to  the  real  strategic  center,  the  public  sentiment 
of  the  community — and  this  must  include  the  persuasion  of  a 
large  part  of  the  present  membership  of  the  United  Societies.  It 
would  be  a  far  from  hopeless  battle:  it  could  summon  to  its 
support  the  arguments  for  a  day  of  rest,  strong  among  bar- 
tenders as  among  other  workers,  those  based  on  the  economic 
waste  following  the  weekly  pay  day,  the  especial  temptations  to 
drunkenness  that  a  day  of  idleness  offers,  as  well  as  the  moral 
arguments  for  a  religious  Sunday.  If  a  victory  were  won  on 
these  lines  it  would  be  a  real  and  permanent  one. 

For  Chicago  the  prohibition  movement  is  of  less  immediate 
significance  than  the  Sunday-closing  movement.  No  unprejudiced 
observer  believes  that  the  city  or  county  can  be  carried  for  pro- 
hibition in  the  near  future,  and  there  is  only  slightly  greater  pos- 
sibility of  state  prohibition.  Its  importance  lies  in  its  constant 
proclamation  of  ultimate  aims,  and,  as  such,  in  its  use  on  the 
other  side  as  a  bogy  to  concentrate  opposition  to  all  demands 
for  reform  in  the  saloon  business.  Its  strength  consists  ob- 
viously, in  the  unselfishness  and  devotion  of  its  members;  since 
whether  it  be  right  or  wrong,  it  has  no  basis  of  financial  profit 
or  selfish  interest,  but  only  of  zeal  for  what  its  supporters  be- 
lieve to  be  the  part  of  righteousness.  It  is  necessary  to  say  also 
that  it  involves  the  danger  that  by  concentrating  the  attention 
of  its  followers  on  the  remote  goal  of  total  abolition,  it  may  close 
their  eyes  to  the  intermediate  necessity  of  amelioration :  if  we  are 
going  to  destroy,  there  need  be  no  talk  of  amendment. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  program  of  the  defensive  forces.  The 
United  Societies,  as  has  been  said,  couch  their  statements  of  pur- 
poses in  sounding  phrases,  considerably  broader  than  their  actual 


432  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

interest.  They  proclaim  the  rights  of  man  and  of  self-govern- 
ment and  home  rule ;  and  this  is  in  large  part  due  to  the  nature 
of  their  constituency.  Its  leaders  have  the  ears  of  the  foreign 
population.  They  speak  to  them  through  their  own  press  and  in 
their  own  tongue,  and  no  representative  of  the  other  side  does. 
If,  therefore,  they  can  rally  the  foreign  societies  to  the  defense 
of  honored  principles,  they  have  a  powerful  foundation  on  which 
to  build,  and  that  they  have  done  so  is  a  fact  which  the  anti- 
saloon  forces  have  usually  made  the  mistake  of  ignoring.  In  an 
organization  like  this,  embracing  a  tremendous  property  and 
financial  interest,  serving  also  inevitably  some  of  the  interests  of 
lawlessness  and  self-indulgence,  and  including  also  a  body  ac- 
tuated by  conscientious  motives  and  adherence  to  principle,  the 
seeds  of  discord  must  exist.  I  venture  to  say  that  the  only  way 
in  which  the  forces  of  reform  can  take  advantage  of  them  is  by 
ultimately  getting  the  attention  and  co-operation  of  the  law-abid- 
ing and  conscientious  foreign  elements  now  marching  under  the 
banner  of  the  United  States  for  Local  Self-Government ;  and  that 
true  reform  in  the  liquor  situation  will  not  progress  very  far  in 
Chicago  without  that  attention  and  co-operation. 

The  real  program  of  the  United  Societies  is,  at  present,  re- 
sistance to  interference  with  the  sale  of  alcoholic  drinks.  Those 

in  control  of  the  movement  are  in  favor  of  local 
united  bocieties  autonomy  because  local  autonomy  under  present 
Program  ,.  .  , 

conditions  would  mean   greater   freedom  than 

would  state  control.  They  are  for  local  option  to  permit  Sun- 
day liquor  selling,  but  against  local  option  as  an  instrument  of 
prohibition ;  just  as  their  opponents  are  at  present  for  local  option 
upon  license  or  non-license,  not  as  a  principle,  but  only  until  they 
can  secure  state  prohibition;  and  they  resist  local  option  on  the 
Sunday  question.  It  is  a  question  of  interest,  not  logic,  upon  both 
sides. 

Can  the  United  Societies  hold  their  position  ?  Certainly  so  long 
as  the  Sunday-closing  question  remains  in  its  present  form  they 
can.  There  is  every  evidence  that  the  opponents  of  Sunday 
closing  can  in  the  future,  as  they  have  in  the  past,  control  the 
city  administration  and  prevent  enforcement  of  the  old  state  law. 
So  long  as  anti-saloon  forces  continue  to  demand  the  enforcement 


F.  D.  BRAMHALL 


433 


of  the  law  as  it  stands,  with  the  local  machinery  as  it  stands, 
there  is  very  little  doubt  that  the  defense  is  impregnable.  They 
can  also,  in  any  predictable  future,  prevent  prohibition  by  local 
action.  In  so  far,  however,  as  the  position  of  the  defense  ex- 
tends to  a  general  demand  that  the  saloon  be  let  alone,  no  disin- 
terested observer  can  believe  that  they  can  ultimately  succeed. 
So  soon  as  the  attack  shifts  from  the  Sunday  question  and  abso- 
lute prohibition  to  the  elimination  of  unquestioned  abuses,  the 
defense  will  surely  lose  its  solidarity  and  the  support  of  the  re- 
spectable elements  which  it  now  commands. 

The  present  situation,  then,  may  be  described  as  an  absolute 
deadlock  between  the  militant  forces,  each  presenting  extreme 
demands.  As  regards  its  most  irritating  feature, 
the  Sunday-closing  question,  it  is  almost  fair  to 
say  that  it  descends  to  the  level  of  an  unprofitable  wrangle.  All 
attention  is  focussed  on  a  clash  of  irreconcilable  and  uncompro- 
mising programs.  The  anti-saloon  forces  declare  too  commonly : 
"  The  saloons  must  be  closed  on  Sunday  now ;  they  must  be 
abolished  by  law  as  the  next  step.  This  is  war.  If  you  are  not 
with  us,  you  are  against  us ;  you  belong  to  the  saloon  interests." 
The  reply  is  too  likely  to  come,  not  only  from  the  saloon  interests 
proper,  the  financial  interests  of  many  grades  of  respectability 
and  its  opposite,  but  also  from  those  well-meaning  persons  to 
whom  we  have  not  yet  learned  to  talk  with  sympathy  and  under- 
standing, "  Then,  we  are  against  you.  We  will  keep  the  saloon. 
And  since  this  is  war,  we  will  not  give  aid  and  comfort  to  the 
enemy  by  noticing  the  abuses  of  the  business."  So  the  lines 
are  drawn,  and  there  is  no  room  for  the  dispassionate  discussion 
of  the  many  vital  questions  of  which  the  interests  of  progress 
demand  the  consideration,  and  our  advance  is  blocked  in  directions 
which  may  be  right  ones  for  the  final  elimination  of  the  tre- 
mendous evils  of  the  liquor  business. 

By  way  of  illustration,  let  me  suggest  some  of  these  vital  ques- 
tions, left  practically  out  of  sight  in  the  present  struggle  in  Chi- 
cago: 

What  is  the  significance,  for  purposes  of  public  regulation,  of 
the  substitution  of  the  great  breweries  for  the  less  responsible  in- 
dividuals in  the  control  of  the  retail  business?  Can  we  not  use 
the  fact  to  enforce  a  greater  degree  of  responsibility? 


434  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

Is  it  possible  to  make  any  distinction  between  drinks  of  a  low 
percentage  of  alcohol,  like  beer,  and  distilled  spirits,  like  whiskey 
in  public  regulation?  Their  immediate  effects,  their  relation  to 
crime,  their  claim  upon  respectable  elements  of  the  population, 
are  vastly  different:  can  we  recognize  that  fact  in  law  and  ad- 
ministration ? 

How  best  can  the  relations  of  intoxicants  and  prostitution  be 
traced,  and  their  alliance  broken? 

Is  it  possible  to  rob  the  saloon  of  its  elements  of  attractive- 
ness, of  public  convenience  and  public  necessity  which  multiply 
its  invitations  to  men  who  do  not  go  primarily 
The  Real  Issue  for  drink?  To  reduce  it,  in  other  words,  to  its 
barest  essentials  as  a  place  for  dispensing  alcoholic  drinks? 

Is  it  possible  to  alter  the  relation  of  private  profit  and  the 
volume  of  sales  of  intoxicating  liquor,  so  as  to  remove  the  most 
fundamental  incentive  to  lawbreaking? 

In  general,  there  are  many  sincere  students  of  the  situation  who 
are  at  present  unable  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  the  solution; 
those  principally  who  believe  that  inebriety  is  a  disease  of  society, 
not  primarily  a  question  of  individual  morals;  that  like  many 
other  social  diseases  it  is  one  which  is  likely  ultimately  to  yield 
not  to  surgery  or  direct  medication,  but  to  public  hygiene  and 
prophylaxis;  that  we  must  attack  the  predisposing  causes,  the 
sources  of  the  constitutional  weaknesses  that  make  for  its  spread, 
and  work  for  the  wholesomeness  of  the  social  environment ;  that 
the  immediate  business  in  hand  is  for  us  to  provide  better  edu- 
cation, especially  industrial  education,  so  that  opportunity  is  more 
equal;  better  housing  and  cheap  lodging,  better  cheap  eating- 
houses,  more  public  playgrounds  and  gymnasiums  and  parks, 
more  free  social  centers,  and  better  free  or  cheap  entertainments ; 
and  so  to  see  to  it  that  there  are  less  men  allowed  to  grow  up  with 
so  little  physical  soundness,  or  intelligence,  or  imagination  as  to 
want  to  get  drunk.  People  who  think  this  the  hopeful  course  are 
likely  to  feel  that  extreme  and  impracticable  demands  for  a  total 
reform  in  one  step  serve  principally  to  divide  the  forces  of  at- 
tack and  concentrate  and  stiffen  those  of  resistance. 

It  is  not  only  in  the  liquor  situation  itself  that  the  present  align- 
ment of  forces  is  unsatisfactory.  It  has  unquestionably  a  de- 


F.  D.  BRAMHALL  435 

plorable  influence  on  progress  in  other  directions.  To  the  com- 
batants in  the  liquor  conflict,  no  other  consideration  is  likely  to 
be  of  any  comparable  weight.  Both  have  shown  themselves  ready 
to  sacrifice  general  argument  to  what  they  regard  as  the  para- 
mount issue.  Both  the  United  Societies  and  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  have  included  in  their  lists  of  candidates  recommended 
for  the  legislature  the  names  of  persons  who  had  proved  them- 
selves unworthy  of  an  honest  man's  vote.  That  the  United  So- 
cieties lists  have  contained  more  such  names  was  to  have  been  ex- 
pected, and  of  course  does  not  exonerate  the  Anti-Saloon  League. 
A  few  specific  incidents  in  the  last  few  years  will  serve  to  illus- 
trate the  obstruction  which  the  Sunday-closing  question  in  par- 
ticular has  placed  in  the  way  of  municipal  advance. 

Chicago  has  long  needed  a  new  charter  to  simplify  its  complex 
of  local  governments,  to  give  it  a  more  liberal  grant  of  power 
to  work  out  its  own  problems,  and  to  make  pos- 
rm  sible  a  revenue  and  bonding  power  more  nearly 
commensurate  with  its  responsibilities.  In  1907  the  movement 
seemed  likely  at  last  to  be  successful.  A  local  convention  was 
called  to  secure  an  agreement  on  the  charter  the  city  was  to  ask 
of  the  legislature.  Leading  members  of  that  convention  foresaw 
that  the  Sunday-closing  question  was  one  of  the  most  dangerous 
occasions  for  discord  that  they  were  likely  to  meet,  though  by  no 
means  the  only  one.  Finally,  after  very  great  labor,  a  conclu- 
sion was  reached  on  which  all  the  diverse  elements  in  the  conven- 
tion agreed:  necessarily  a  delicately  balanced  compromise.  One 
of  the  features  of  the  compromise  was  to  be  the  submission  to 
the  voters  of  the  city,  separately  from  the  charter,  of  a  repeal  of 
the  state  Sunday-closing  law,  and  a  grant  of  authority  to  the  city 
to  control  the  subject.  In  spite  of  protests  from  the  Law  and 
Order  League  the  vote  of  the  convention  was  unanimous.  The 
legislature,  however,  threw  out  the  proposition.  The  indignation 
of  the  United  Societies  was  immediately  expressed,  and  they 
began  a  vigorous  campaign  against  the  charter,  not  based  avow- 
edly on  the  failure  to  pass  the  separate  bills,  since  in  itself  that 
only  left  the  situation  as  it  was  before,  but  largely  in  fact  to 
show  that  they  could  not  be  ignored  with  impunity.  They  urged 
also  that  the  clause  saving  the  validity  of  state  law  inserted  in 


436  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

connection  with  the  general  grant  of  municipal  home  rule  might 
be  taken  as  a  declaration  that  the  state  Sunday-closing  law  was 
in  force  in  Chicago.  They  emphasized  several  other  objections, 
such  as  increased  taxation,  which  were  probably  not  quite  so 
ingenuous.  The  charter  was  beaten  by  a  popular  vote  of  2  to  I 
in  the  city,  and  the  United  Societies  immediately  proclaimed 
that  they  had  killed  it.  That  claim  was  not  entirely  true;  there 
were  other  strong  elements  of  opposition  to  it.  But  that  they 
were  a  powerful  contributing  factor  nobody  can  doubt,  and  the 
Sunday  question  might  alone  have  been  enough  to  defeat  it,  re- 
gardless of  its  general  necessity  for  municipal  progress. 

The  defeat  of  State's  Attorney  Healey,  a  conscientious  and 
reliable  prosecutor,  in  the  Republican  primary  in  1908,  by  a 
candidate  whose  record  contained  nothing  to  create  confidence 
in  his  qualifications,  was  due  to  the  intrusion  of  the  Sunday-clos- 
ing question,  which  concentrated  the  liquor  interests  against  him. 
He  had  declared  that  if  evidence  was  presented  to  him  of  the 
sale  of  liquor  on  Sunday  he  would  prosecute  under  the  state  law. 
A  number  of  trials  followed,  all  of  which  ended  in  acquittals  or 
disagreements.  It  should  in  justice  be  said  that  the  Democratic 
primaries  resulted  in  the  nomination  of  a  notoriously  unfit  man, 
and  that  the  United  Societies  had  the  good  sense  to  throw  their 
strength  finally  to  the  preferable  Republican  candidate. 

There  is  no  city  election  into  which  the  Sunday-closing  ques- 
tion does  not  enter  to  confuse  the  issues.  In  the  spring  of  1909, 
the  United  Societies  secured  the  requisite  num- 

ber  of  siSnatures  under  the  "  Public  Policy" 
law  to  have  placed  on  the  ballot  for  an  advisory 

vote  the  question  whether  saloons  in  Chicago  should  be  closed 
on  Sunday.  The  Law  and  Order  League  and  others  immediately 
protested,  and  the  court  finally  refused  to  allow  the  question  to 
go  on  the  ballot  since  its  meaning  must  be,  "  shall  the  law  of  the 
state  be  enforced?"  and  it  was  therefore  not  a  proper  question 
of  public  policy,  The  next  spring  the  Anti-Saloon  League  se- 
cured a  petition  for  a  vote  in  Chicago  on  license  or  no  license 
under  the  local  option  law.  The  United  Societies  attacked  the 
petition  and  showed  enough  signatures  of  non-voters  and  ficti- 
tious names  to  throw  out  the  petition.  In  both  cases,  if  the  ques- 


F.  D.  BRAMHALL  437 

tion  had  been  submitted,  all  the  activities  of  such  bodies  as  the 
Municipal  Voters'  League  for  the  election  of  honest  and  efficient 
aldermen  would  have  been  completely  lost  in  the  stress  of  battle. 
The  Anti-Saloon  League  is  now  preparing  to  circulate  another 
local  option  petition  to  be  voted  on  next  March,  at  the  time  of 
what  is  likely  to  be  one  of  the  most  important  elections  for  many 
years  for  the  city  of  Chicago. 

What  then  is  the  conclusion  ?    First  and  foremost,  for  the  sake 

of  real  progress  in  solving  the  saloon  question  as  well  as  for  the 

progress  of  the  city  toward  good  government, 

The  Need  for         th    Sunday-closing  deadlock  must  be  got  out  of 

Home  Rule  *      ,     °         .    c  °      ,      ., 

the  way.    The  believers  in  Sunday  closing  should 

either  secure  state  enforcement,  or  they  should  consent  to  leave 
the  whole  matter  to  the  city.  The  latter  is  certainly  the  preferable 
course.  All  municipal  progress  in  Chicago  has  been  based  on  the 
thesis  that  the  people  of  the  city  can  be  trusted  to  work  out  their 
own  salvation.  We  believe  in  municipal  home  rule,  and  our  ex- 
perience so  far  gives  us  a  hopefulness  and  enthusiasm  for  it  that 
New  Yorkers  seem  unable  to  maintain — even  so  powerful  a  cham- 
pion of  it  as  Professor  Goodnow.  We  believe  that  in  a  question 
so  local,  so  involved  with  our  peculiar  racial  and  social  conditions, 
as  the  regulation  of  saloons,  the  city  and  not  the  state  ought  to 
have  the  power  of  control. 

Second,  with  that  irritation  out  of  the  way,  those  who  believe 
that  the  evils  of  saloons  must  be  met  and  cured,  must  endeavor 
to  unite  all  who  subscribe  to  that  purpose,  to  avoid  solidifying 
the  opposition  by  unnecessary  intolerance  and  alienating  any  who 
might  be  induced  to  co-operate.  Particularly,  it  is  bad  politics 
and  unnecessary  to  ignore  the  elements  of  sobriety  and  principle 
in  the  foreign  population ;  for  the  effective  regulation  of  saloons 
in  Chicago  can  only  be  secured  by  their  co-operation,  and  can 
not  be  inposed  against  their  concentrated  opposition. 

Finally,  all  must  recognize  that  honest  and  efficient  government 
of  the  city  is  fundamental.  Whatever  our  laws  are,  we  cannot 
get  ahead  very  much  without  better  administration.  It  will  be 
useless  to  get  more  stringent  laws  against  saloons,  unless  we  can 
get  good  officers  to  enforce  them;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  sale 
of  alcoholic  drinks  will  certainly  be  subject  to  attack  so  long  as 


438  THE  LIQUOR  PROBLEM  IN  CHICAGO 

lax  and  corrupt  police  administration  allows  it  to  be  allied  with 
crime  and  vice  and  lawlessness. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  after  all  only  a  more  efficient  and  honest  and 
enlightened  government  in  Chicago  that  can  make  progress  in 
meeting  the  liquor  question  possible,  either  by  improved  social 
hygiene,  so  that  fewer  men  will  want  alcoholic  drink,  or  by  ef- 
fective restriction  upon  the  invitations  and  temptations  to  drink. 
To  risk  the  interests  of  general  good  government  by  a  rigid  in- 
sistence upon  a  special  program  of  doubtful  practicability  is  a 
serious  responsibility  for  any  party  to  assume. 


SIXTEENTH  ANNUAL   MEETING  OF  THE 
NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE 

AND  THE 

EIGHTEENTH    NATIONAL    CONFERENCE 
FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 

HELD  AT 

BUFFALO, 

NOVEMBER  14,  15,  16,  17,  1910. 


MONDAY  EVENING  SESSION. 

MONDAY  EVENING,  NOVEMBER  14,  1910,  8:30  p.  M. 

The  first  session  of  the  meeting  was  held  in  Perkins  Memorial  Hall, 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  Buffalo,  N.  Y. ;  William  H.  Robert- 
son, President  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  of  Buffalo,  presiding. 

MR.  ROBERTSON  :  It  is  my  happy  privilege  to  extend  to  the  delegates 
to  the  Sixteenth  Annual  Meeting  of  the  National  Municipal  League  and 
the  Eighteenth  Annual  Conference  of  Good  City  Government  the  hearty 
welcome  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  Manufacturers'  Club  in  par- 
ticular and  of  the  citizens  of  Buffalo  in  general.  We  have  a  great  many 
conventions  and  assemblages  of  one  kind  and  another.  They  come  at  the 
invitation  of  the  city  of  Buffalo  and  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  and 
Manufacturers'  Club.  From  all  of  these  conventions  the  city  benefits 
directly  by  the  information  which  is  obtained  through  the  discussions  that 
occur  and  the  publication  of  them,  and  indirectly  by  publicity  which  we 
get  by  having  strangers  from  all  parts  of  the  country  see  our  beautiful 
city  and  carry  away  pleasant  memories  with  them. 

I  think  we  are  particularly  fortunate  in  having  this  annual  meeting  of 
the  National  Municipal  League  because  I  believe  that  we  will  get  more 
good  out  of  it  and  it  will  do  more  to  stimulate  interest  on  the  part  of  our 
citizens  in  good  government  than  any  other  meeting  of  the  kind  that  has 
ever  been  held  here.  The  trend  of  modern  thought  is  towards  better- 
ment in  our  city  government.  The  great  problem  of  this  republic  is  the 
danger  of  license,  waste  and  extravagance  in  the  government  of  our 

(439) 


440  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

great  municipalities  and  we  have  much  to  learn  from  the  cities  of  Europe 
with  regard  to  bettering  these  conditions. 

Everything  visible  is  the  result  of  an  idea.     Interchange  of  ideas  is  the 

object    of    this    meeting.     From    this    interchange    of 

Interchange  ideas  some  one  or  more  is  selected  and  is  given  ex- 

of  Ideas  pression   and  through  organization   is   exploited  with 

the  hope  of  benefiting  the  people  by  creating  in  their 

minds  a  readiness  and  a  willingness  to  bring  about  unitedly  the  reforms 

that  are  suggested. 

I  was  greatly  impressed  by  the  attitude  of  Charles  Darwin  with  ref- 
erence to  the  reception  that  his  great  work  received.  For  thirty  years 
he  had  scientifically  investigated  every  line  of  research  which  tended  to 
confirm  a  theory  which  he  held.  That  theory  was  enunciated  and  im- 
mediately raised  a  storm  of  opposition  throughout  the  world.  When 
asked  why  he  did  not  attempt  to  defend  himself  he  put  it  in  this  way: 
that  if  the  theory,  based  on  scientific  investigation,  was  sound  it  must 
prevail,  regardless  of  the  opposition  it  was  receiving  at  that  time;  that 
if  it  was  false  it  was  equally  bound  to  fail  and  it  should  fail. 

The  attitude  of  the  public  towards  any  innovation,  towards  anything 
that  is  progressive,  is  to  look  upon  the  man  who  advances  it  as  a  crank 
and  a  reformer  and  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  it, — to  scoff  at  it, — but 
just  so  certain  as  the  idea  advanced  is  sound  and  based  on  truth,  just  so 
certain  is  it  that  it  will  prevail  and  overcome  all  opposition,  no  matter 
from  what  source  the  opposition  springs,  because  that  is  the  lesson  of 
life:  that  which  is  true  will  prevail,  that  which  is  false  must  fall.  There- 
fore, those  who  are  actively  interested,  in  propagating  an  idea,  in  giving 
expression  to  a  belief  which  they  believe  will  tend  to  cure  certain  evils 
that  exist,  should  also  bear  in  mind  that  the  truth  of  the  idea  which 
they  expound  and  the  sincerity  of  purpose  that  animates  them  in  giving 
expression  to  their  thought  is  the  thing  which  must  comfort  and  convince 
the  minds  of  the  masses  of  the  people  until  they  see  the  thing  as  those 
who  expound  it  see  it,  and,  accepting  it  as  true,  are  willing  to  bring 
about  the  reform  suggested,  the  action  suggested.  It  takes  time  to  do 
these  things,  therefore  people  must  be  patient.  If  that  which  is  seem- 
ingly sound  is  given  expression  to  and  organizations  are  formed  to  ex- 
ploit it,  those  interested  should  have  the  same  attitude  that  Darwin 
had, — if  their  idea  is  not  sound,  then  it  should  fall. 

Consequently,  again,  there  is  the  element  of  patience  to  be  considered. 
I  believe,  and  I  am  sure  all  thinking  people  believe,  that  out  of  the 
discussions  that  are  occurring  throughout  the  length 
The  Element  of  an(^  breadth  of  this  land  and  of  other  countries,  that 
Success  advancement  is  sure  to  come  in  the  betterment  of 

governments  of  the  great  cities.  And  no  organiza- 
tion, no  group  of  men  are  doing  more  to  bring  about  this  result  than  the 
men  who  are  gathered  in  Buffalo  this  week  at  this  Sixteenth  Annual 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  44! 

Meeting  of  the  League  and  who  are  giving  a  great  deal  of  time  and 
thought  to  this  subject  and  are  suggesting  methods  and  ways  of  bring- 
ing about  results  which  are  sane  and  commend  themselves  to  the  attention 
of  all  right-thinking  people. 

Mr.  Horace  E.  Deming,  Chairman  of  the  Executive  Committee,  will 
now  reply  on  behalf  of  the  National  Municipal  League. 

MR.  DEMING:  The  National  Municipal  League  is  very  glad  to  come  to 
Buffalo.  We  should  have  been  very  glad  to  come  in  any  event,  but  your 
cordial  greeting  makes  it  much  pleasanter  for  us  to  be  here. 

The  National  Municipal  League  is  unique  among  the  associations  for 
municipal  betterment  in  this  country.  It  is  not  the  local  association  of 
any  city,  it  is  not  even  a  state  association  or  a 
The  League  is  league  of  the  municipalities  of  a  state.  From  the  be- 
Unique  ginning,  therefore,  it  has  studied  the  municipal  prob- 

lem not  in  one  city  only  or  in  one  state,  but  in  many 
cities  in  many  states.  You  will  agree  with  me,  I  think,  that  such  a  method 
has  certain  advantages.  Among  others,  it  helps  one  to  retain  if  he  has 
it,  and  to  gain,  if  he  does  not  have  it  already,  some  sense  of  perspective. 
The  city  problem  is  a  whole  with  many  parts.  The  National  Municipal 
League  has  appreciated  this.  It  has  tried  to  see  the  whole  of  the  problem 
and  not  merely  one  or  several  parts  of  it.  It  has  tried  to  see  the  relation 
of  the  whole  to  the  parts  and  of  the  parts  to  the  whole  and  to  one  an- 
other. The  League,  therefore,  has  never  advocated  a  particular  method 
as  the  only  method  of  betterment  or  represented  a  partial  remedy,  how- 
ever helpful,  as  a  complete  cure  of  municipal  misrule. 

I  recall  that  at  the  outset  of  the  movement  for  improving  city  gov- 
ernment in  this  country  the  article  of  faith  upon  whose  efficacy  muni- 
cipal reformers  relied  was  the  divorce  of  national  politics  from  local 
elections.  To  keep  the  decision  of  local  issues  free  from  the  influence 
of  national  politics  is  of  vast  importance  but  it  will  not  by  itself  bring 
about  municipal  redemption.  Then  I  remember  that  civil  service  re- 
form, the  application  of  the  merit  principle  in  appointment  to  office,  was 
going  to  take  all  the  evil  out  of  municipal  affairs.  This  will  help,  it  will 
help  amazingly,  but  the  spoils  evil,  great  as  it  is,  is  not  the  only  evil 
from  which  our  cities  suffer.  Then  another  perfect  remedy  was  found, 
— the  emancipation  of  our  cities  from  the  dominion  of  the  state  legisla- 
tures. Buffalo  does  not  need  to  be  told  how  necessary  this  is,  no  city 
in  New  York  needs  to  be  told  of  the  harm  wrought  by  legislative  med- 
dling. To  free  our  cities  from  unwise  and  often  capricious  state  legis- 
lation will  be  an  unmixed  good  but  it  will  not  necessarily  make  them 
well  governed. 

Accurate  and  informing  methods  of  city  accounting  is  another  cure- 
all.  We  must  find  out  where  our  dollars  go  and  what  we  get  in  return 


442  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

for  them.  Surely  we  need  this  information,  but  a  scientific  system  of 
accounts  and  intelligible  budgets  are  not  the  whole  of  the  municipal 
problem.  Then  a  number  of  gentlemen,  who  have  studied  municipal  gov- 
ernment in  Europe,  found  that  the  civil  service  of  European  cities  of- 
fered attractive  life  careers  to  men  of  ability  and  training,  that  men  of 
the  highest  professional  standing  were  sought  for  as  heads  of  the  great 
administrative  departments  and  were  eager  to  take  charge  of  them.  This 
was  in  sharp  contrast  to  our  methods,  and,  since  the 
"  Cure- Alls "  cities  of  Europe  are  marvellously  well-governed  as 

compared  with  the  cities  of  this  country  these  gentle- 
men are  sure  that  all  we  need  to  do  in  order  to  have  good  city  govern- 
ment is  to  have  experts  in  charge.  This  would  certainly  bring  about  a 
vast  change  for  the  better.  But  first  we  must  find  an  effective  way  to 
put  the  experts  in  charge. 

Then  there  are  others  who  say  that  our  city  governments  are  too 
complicated  in  structure,  our  city  charters  are  incomprehensible  verbal 
jumbles  which  it  taxes  the  utmost  efforts  of  specially  trained  lawyers  to 
decipher;  that  we  must  simplify  our  form  of  city  government.  These 
gentlemen  are  right  but  that  is  only  part  of  the  problem. 

Others  are  confident  that  the  whole  trouble  is  in  the  improper  and 
often  unjust  methods  of  nominating  candidates  for  elective  public  office. 
Our  nominating  methods  need  vast  improvement  and  very  possibly  should 
be  entirely  superseded.  But  surely,  making  nominations,  in  even  the  best 
possible  way,  does  not  promise  any  thorough-going  solution  of  our 
problem. 

The  short  ballot  is  another  prescription.  "  Make  a  drastic  reduction 
in  the  number  of  elective  offices.  A  ballot  containing  the  names  of  so 
many  candidates  for  so  many  different  offices  is  an  inextricable  tangle. 
It  makes  intelligent  voting  impracticable",  so  runs  the  argument.  The 
muddled  and  muddling  ballots  commonly  used  deserve  all  the  con- 
demnation they  receive  and  more.  A  short  ballot  would  help  immensely 
toward  solving  the  municipal  problem  but  its  complete  solution  will  re- 
quire more  than  a  short  ballot. 

Let  me  refer  to  one  more  all-sufficient  remedy  for  bad  local  conditions : 
"  Put  into  the  city's  charter  a  larger  grant  of  power  to  deal  with  the 
local  needs."  This  would  be  a  long  step  forward  but  it  will  not  remove 
the  necessity  of  other  steps,  if  we  are  to  put  bad  government  to  rout. 

And  so  I  might  go  on.  I  have  mentioned,  without  enlarging  upon  them, 
some  of  the  various  remedies  recommended  for  our  municipal  ills.  The 
National  Municipal  League  is  in  favor  of  them  all.  It  believes  that  the 
more  thoroughly  any  one  of  them  is  applied,  the  further  is  our  progress 
toward  the  goal  of  responsible  and  efficient  city  government  in  the 
United  States.  But  no  one  of  them  by  itself  will  usher  in  a  municipal 
millennium. 

The  truth  is,  it  is  only  within  thirty  years  that  public  attention  in  this 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  443 

country  began  to  be  effectively  directed  to  the  low  condition  into  which 
our  city  governments  had  fallen.  Our  method  of  procedure  has  been 
characteristically  American,  which  is  the  same  thing  as  saying,  it  has 
been  in  accordance  with  the  traditions  and  habits  we  inherit  from  our 
political  ancestors,  the  sturdy  Englishmen  who  were  content  to  earn 
their  living  and  to  bother  themselves  very  little,  or  not  at  all,  with 
questions  of  government  unless  the  conduct  of  the  government  bothered 
them.  Like  them,  as  this  or  that  evil  in  our  own  city  has  become  too 
grievous,  we  have  rebelled  against  it  and  set  about  finding  a  remedy.  It 
is  the  particular  evil  that  rouses  us  to  action  and  its  special  remedy  that 
occupies  our  whole  attention. 

However  much  this  method  of  procedure  may  be  criticized,  it  has 
this  great  and  fundamental  merit;  it  is  the  natural  process  through  which 
the  people  have  developed  a  constantly  increasing  control  of  the  conduct 
of  their  government,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  control,  the  control  is  not 
the  end,  but  as  a  means  to  the  improvement  of  the  government. 

This  has  been  strikingly  true  of  the  municipal  reform  work  of  the  last 

thirty  years  along  the  different  lines  to  which  I  have 

Representative       called   attention.    Divergent   as  they  may  seem,   they 

Government  have   this   characteristic   in    common.    Each   seeks   to 

better  the  government  by  supplying  some  aid  to  the 

people  of  the  city  in  their  effort  to  control  its  conduct  or  to   remove 

some  obstacle  to  such  control. 

If  the  government  of  a  city  is  to  suit  its  people,  if  it  is  to  represent 
their  wishes  and  meet  their  needs,  they  must  control  the  government 
This  is  fundamental. 

If  the  people  of  the  town  control  the  government  of  the  town,  then 
for  the  first  time  will  the  government  they  deserve  be  the  government  they 
wish.  In  the  cities  of  the  United  States  it  will  become  good  government 

There  has  been  effective  work  to  this  end  in  numerous  cities  in  many 
states  along  each  of  the  lines  of  which  I  have  spoken  and  along  others 
as  well.  As  compared  with  the  municipal  situation  in  the  '7o's  and  early 
'8o's,  enormous  progress  has  been  made.  Come  to  the  meetings  of  our 
League  and  hear  of  some  of  the  things  that  have  been  accomplished  and 
of  the  further  efforts  now  making. 

CHAIRMAN  ROBERTSON  :  It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  introduce  to  you 
the  Hon.  William  Dudley  Foulke,  of  Richmond,  Ind.,  United  States  Civil 
Service  Commissioner  under  Theodore  Roosevelt  as  President.  The 
subject  of  Mr.  Foulke's  address  is  "  Conservation  in  Municipalities." 

[For  Mr.  Foulke's  address,  see  page  12.] 

CHAIRMAN  ROBERTSON  :  I  take  great  pleasure  in  introducing  at  this  time 
Honorable  Charles  J.  Bonaparte,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  formerly  Attorney- 
General  under  President  Roosevelt — the  subject  of  his  address  is  "  Patriot- 
ism in  Municipal  Affairs." 

[For  Mr.  Bonaparte's  address,  see  page  3.] 

Adjourned. 


444  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

TUESDAY  MORNING  SESSION. 

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER  15,  1910,  10:30  A.  M., 

HOTEL  IROQUOIS,  BUFFALO,  N.  Y. 
PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE  in  the  chair. 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  The  first  business  in  order  is  the  report  of  the 
Treasurer,  Mr.  George  Burnham,  Jr.1 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  This  is  somewhat  more  cheering  than  such  re- 
ports have  occasionally  been  in  time  past.  Nevertheless,  there  is  very 
good  reason  why  all  persons  present  should  take  to  heart  the  lessons 
which  it  contains  and  do  what  they  can  to  take  away  the  point  from  those 
lessons  in  future  by  improving  the  finances  of  the  League.  This  report 
has  already  been  referred  by  the  Executive  Committee  to  the  Business 
Committee  for  audit. 

The  next  business  in  order  is  the  annual  review  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
progress  of  what  he  calls  "The  New  Municipal  Idea" — Mr.  Woodruff. 

[The  Secretary's  review  will  be  found  in  full  on  page  22.] 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  The  report  of  the  Sec- 
retary requires  no  action  by  the  League,  except  an  Ephebic  oath  on  the 
part  of  all  those  who  have  heard  it,  or  have  heard 
An  Ephebic  Oath,  ^he  summary  of  it,  that  in  addition  to  the  various 
Required  good  things  that  they  would  do  and  the  bad  things 

that  they  would  refrain  from,  as  suggested  by  the 
example  of  the  Athenian  youths  in  New  York,  or  of  the  imitators  of  the 
Athenian  youths  in  New  York,  that  they  will  hereafter  read  the  whole 
of  it  in  the  proceedings  of  the  League  and  not  yawn  once  in  the  process. 
[Laughter.] 

As  the  next  business  in  order  is  one  which  involves  a  duty  that  I 
am  required  to  discharge  myself,  I  will  ask  my  friend  Mr.  Chase  to 
take  the  chair  temporarily  while  it  is  disposed  of. 

Mr.  Harvey  Stuart  Chase,  of  Boston,  in  the  chair. 

MR.  BONAPARTE:  The  Committee  on  Nominations  appointed  for  the 
present  year  had  a  somewhat  excessively  responsible  duty  to  perform 
by  reason  of  the  fact  that  there  was  to  be  a  vacancy  in  the  office  of 
president  of  the  League.  After  a  very  careful  consideration  of  all  the 
circumstances  that  seemed  to  be  relevant  or  bearing  upon  that  situation, 
and  also  of  the  circumstances  relating  to  the  filling  of  such  other 

1  The  complete  report  of  the  Treasurer  for  the  year  1910-1911,  the  fiscal 
year  ending  March  31,  will  be  sent  to  the  members  of  the  League,  by 
direction  of  the  Executive  Committee. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


445 


vacancies  in  the  governing  body  of  the  League  as  were  necessarily  created, 
they  submit  to  you  the  following  ticket : 

See  list  of  officers -and  Executive  Committee  for  the  year  1910-1911 
in  the  Appendix. 

In  order  to  adapt  the  report  to  the  advanced  ideas  of  "  the  new 
politics  "  and  to  the  increased  and  very  fortunate  interest  in  methods  in 
politics  it  creates,  the  report  explains  the  new  names  by  underscoring 
them.  In  other  words  the  names  under  which  you  will  find  the  under- 
scoring are  those  of  the  persons  who  did  not  previously  fill  the  offices 
for  which  they  are  nominated. 

CHAIRMAN  CHASE:  If  there  is  no  objection  the  report  of  the  Nomin- 
ating  Committee  will   be  accepted  and  we  will   pro- 
Election  ceed  to  ballot. 

President  Bonaparte  resumed  the  chair. 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  The  business  before  the  League  is  action  on 
the  report  of  the  Nominating  Committee  by  balloting  for  the  officers. 
The  constitution  requires  the  election  to  be  by  ballot,  owing  to  the  evil 
practices  of  old  politics.  [Laughter.]  A  resolution  has  sometimes  been 
presented  that  some  designated  person  should  cast  a  single  ballot  for 
the  persons  named.  Should  such  a  resolution  be  presented  it  can  of 
course  be  adopted  only  by  unanimous  consent. 

MR.  CHASE:  Mr.  President,  I  move  that  the  members  refrain  from 
voting  and  that  the  Secretary  cast  one  ballot. 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  It  is  moved  that  the 
members  of  the  League  refrain  from  voting  and  that  the  Secretary  cast 
one  ballot  in  the  name  of  the  whole.  That  resolution  has  many  ad- 
vantages, the  first  being  that  it  is  unconstitutional.  [Laughter.]  I  will, 
however,  entertain  it  as  signifying  that  the  Secretary  be  authorized  and 
directed  to  cast  a  ballot  for  the  names  reported  by  the  committee  as  rep- 
resenting the  unanimous  judgment  of  the  members  of  the  League  here 
present.  As  I  have  already  said,  such  action  can  only  be  taken  by 
unanimous  consent.  Is  any  debate  desired  on  the  resolution  in  the 
form  submitted? 

On  the  vote,  the  question  was  determined  in  the  affirmative. 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  The  resolution  has  been  adopted  unanimously, 
and  the  Secretary,  disregarding  all  questions  of  personal  interest  in  the 
matter,  will  proceed  to  discharge  the  duty  imposed  upon  him. 

SECRETARY  WOODRUFF:  Mr.  President,  I  desire  to  state  that  in  accord- 


446  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

ance  with  the  instructions  of  the  meeting  I  have  cast  an  unanimous  ballot 
for  the  nominees  for  president,  vice-president,  treasurer,  secretary  and 
executive  committee  as  nominated. 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  These  officers  are  duly  elected  and  will  assume 
their  duties  to-morrow  morning.  If,  however,  Mr.  Foulke  is  present  I 
think  it  would  be  appropriate  and  in  accordance  with  precedent  that 
he  should  say  a  few  words.  I  take  great  pleasure  in  presenting  to  you 
Hon.  William  Dudley  Foulke. 

MR.  FOULKE:  I  am  just  informed  that  I  have  the  honor  to  be  elected 
President  of  the  League.  I  am  sure  this  is  not  the  occasion  for  a 
speech.  All  I  can  do  is  to  say  that  I  will  use  my  very  best  endeavors, 
with  all  such  diligence  and  such  time  as  is  possible,  to  promote  the 
very  worthy  purposes  in  which  I  have  already  long  been  very  much  in- 
terested, through  the  means  of  an  organization  for  which  I  have  always 
entertained  the  very  highest  respect  and  regard.  [Applause.] 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  The  next  business  in  order  consists  of  a  report 

from  the  League's  Committee  on  "  Municipal  Health 

Health,  and  and  Sanitation,"  on  "  City  and  State  Boards  of  Health 

Sanitation  and    the    Proposed    Federal    Department    of    Public 

Health ",   to  be   presented   by   Mr.   M.   N.   Baker,   of 

Montclair,  N.  J. 

MR.  BAKER:  I  wish  to  absolve  the  other  members  of  the  committee 
from  any  responsibility  for  what  will  be  presented  here  this  morning. 
Through  no  remissness  of  the  other  members,  the  remarks  which  I 
present  represent  not  the  ideas  of  the  committee,  but  simply  my  own. 
I  have  not  had  any  conferences  on  the  preparation  of  this  report,  and 
the  report  is  presented  for  the  purpose  of  eliciting  possible  discussion. 

CITY  AND  STATE  BOARDS  OF  HEALTH  AND  THE  PROPOSED 
FEDERAL  DEPARTMENT  OF  HEALTH. 

A  vigorous  campaign  for  a  federal  department  of  health  has  been 
conducted  during  the  past  two  or  three  years.  One  notable  feature  of 
this  campaign  has  been  the  nebulous  ideas  of  most  of  the  campaigners 
regarding  the  ultimate  work  to  be  undertaken  by  such  a  department. 
Even  more  notable  has  been  the  way  in  which  the  promoters  have  prac- 
tically ignored  the  boards  of  health  which  already  exist  in  every  state  of 
the  Union,  in  every  city  of  consequence  and  in  thousands  of  minor 
cities,  villages  and  even  in  rural  townships. 

I  hardly  need  say  to  the  members  of  the  National  Municipal  League 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  447 

that  the  first  step  in  promoting  any  legislation  should  be  to  form  a  clear 

conception  of  what  needs  to  be  achieved,  and  the 
Federal  second  to  survey  the  field  in  order  to  see  what  forces 

Department  of       already  occupy  it  and  whether  they  should  be  sup- 
Health  planted  or  reinforced.     Since  the  federal  government 

cannot  supplant  state  and  city  boards  of  health,  it  is 
obvious  that  it  can  merely  reinforce  them  or  supplement  their  work. 
The  fundamental  question  is,  hova?  In  what  portions  of  the  health- 
protective  field  and  by  what  means? 

For  the  purpose  of  simplifying  and  stimulating  discussion,  I  shall 
assume  that  public  health  work  is  primarily  local  in  character,  and  that 
the  state  should  intervene  only  when  the  municipality  fails  to  do  its 
duty  to  itself  or  to  its  sister  municipalities;  or  where  municipal  activities 
would  overlap  territorially  and  lead  to  duplication  and  possible  conflict; 
or  where  research  or  other  investigational  work  is  beyond  the  scientific 
and  financial  resources  of  the  small  municipalities ;  or  where  great 
economies  can  be  secured  through  centralized  rather  than  scattered  ef- 
forts. I  also  assume  for  purposes  of  argument  that  the  nation  should 
take  a  hand  in  health  work  only  where  and  when  a  state  and  its  minor 
civil  divisions,  through  one  limitation  or  another,  fails  to  protect  citizens 
outside  its  own  boundaries,  and  when  and  where  it  can  act  on  the  broad 
general  constitutional  grounds  of  interstate  commerce  and  a  limited 
application  of  the  general  welfare  principle. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  state  can  regulate  or  even  administer  local 
health  work  wherever  in  its  wisdom  or  lack  of  wisdom  it  sees  fit  to  do 
so,  quite  regardless  of  whether  the  work  in  question  is  state-wide  or 
purely  local;  but  the  nation  can  take  no  hand,  at  least  not  until  after 
invitation,  in  health  matters  which  affect  only  a  single  state.  This 
difference  between  one  of  the  several  states  and  the  United  States  should 
always  be  borne  in  mind  when  considering  the  proposed  federal  de- 
partment of  health. 

Let  us  now  consider  briefly  the  nature  of  public-health  work.  For 
the  sake  of  definiteness  and  to  promote  discussion,  I  shall  again  take 
for  granted  some  things  which  many  hold  to  be  open  to  debate,  and 

shall  assume  that  for  some  time  to  come  really  effi- 
Nature  of  Public  cient  boards  of  health  will  concern  themselves  chiefly 
Health  Work  with  the  prevention  of  the  spread  of  communicable 

diseases  and  the  reduction  of  infant  mortality  from" 
these  and  other  causes.  This  may  be  taken  to  include  research  and  edu- 
cative work,  so  long  as  either  is  public  rather  than  private  in  character. 
To  be  more  specific,  the  major  part  of  the  every-day  work  of  most 
boards  of  health,  work  which  can  be  measured  in  some  degree  by  its 
effect  on  statistics  of  sickness  and  death,  has  to  do  with  the  control  of  per- 
sons suffering  from  scarlet  and  typhoid  fever,  diphtheria,  tuberculosis 
and  the  like,  the  protection  of  water,  milk  and  other  food  supplies 


448  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

from  infection  by  such  persons,  and  likewise  the  protection  of  well 
persons  from  infection  through  any  possible  failure  to  control  infected 
persons. 

I  boldly  assert  that  if  every  case  of  communicable  disease  were 
promptly  reported  to  the  proper  local  board  of  health  and  as  promptly 
placed  under  effective  sanitary  control  and  so  kept  until  danger  of  in- 
fection were  past,  all  the  other  present-day  activities  of  boards  of 
health,  whether  local,  state  or  national,  with  the  exception  of  those  di- 
rected against  certain  causes  of  infant  mortality,  and  the  possible  further 
exception  of  some  food  and  drug  inspection,  might  be  dropped  with 
no  appreciable  effect  upon  the  general  health  or  mortality  of  any  of  our 
states  or  most  of  our  cities. 

If  this  be  true,  then  health-board  work,  at  least  as  now  carried  on,  is 
essentially  local  in  character,  as  I  have  already  urged,  and  should  be 
conducted,  and  where  necessary  improved,  by  the  municipality  rather  than 
the  state,  much  less  the  nation.  The  state  may  very  properly  do  much 
to  aid  and  even  to  force  the  municipality  to  act  promptly  and  efficiently, 
but  without  local  interest  and  intelligence  the  state  can  achieve  little  and 
the  nation  almost  nothing  compared  with  what  needs  to  be  and  might 
be  done. 

I  may  interject,  in  passing,  that  even  if  the  work  of  boards  of  health 
were  to  be  increased,  as  many  think  they  should  be,  to  include  a  large 
amount  of  general  and  perhaps  somewhat  vague  health-protective  work, 
ranging  from  such  public  measures  as  smoke  and  noise  prevention  to 
such  personal  benefits  as  providing  food  and  clothing  for  needy  school 
children  and  free  medical  service  to  young  and  old,  yet  health-board 
work  would  still  be  essentially  local  in  character. 

In  view  of  the  foregoing  facts  and  opinions,  I  would  therefore  sug- 
gest, as  a  basis  for  discussion  at  this  time,  and  perhaps  for  consideration 
by  this  committee  during  the  year  that  the  primary  responsibility  for 
health  work  be  placed  squarely  upon  the  municipality,  but  that  the  super- 
visory powers  of  the  states  be  increased  so  they  can  hold  their  respective 
cities  and  towns  to  the  strict  fulfilment  of  their  duties.  I  would  also 
suggest  that  most  or  our  states  be  given  enlarged  responsibilities,  powers 
and  facilities  for  the  sanitary  control  of  water,  milk  and  general  food 
supplies  common  to  more  than  one  municipality,  and  that  the  states  be 
given  increased  facilities  for  research  and  educational  work,  the  latter 
to  include  publication  and  popularization  of  the  results  of  not  only  their 
own  work  but  also  of  the  best  of  the  instructive  work  of  local  boards. 

As  for  the  federal  government,  I  would  suggest,  again  for  purposes  of 
discussion,  rather  than  as  my  own  final  opinion,  that  for  the  present  its 
health  activities  be  somewhat  closely  limited  to  those  interstate  fields  in 
which  the  states  are  largely  powerless,  particularly  to  the  sanitary  pro- 
tection of  interstate  water,  milk,  meat  and  other  food  supplies,  including 
milk  and  meat  from  tuberculous  animals;  and  also  including  the  sanitary 
control  of  interstate  railway  cars  and  passengers. 


449 

The  federal  government  might  also  very  properly  carry  on  health  re- 
search work  of  truly  national  importance.  Such  research  work,  and  also 
the  dissemination  of  the  practical  results  achieved,  might  perhaps  well 
be  conducted  jointly  with  state  boards  of  health,  and  under  special  cir- 
cumstances with  local  boards. 

In  emergencies  the  federal  government  might  aid  states  or  municipali- 
ties by  detailing  epidemiologists  or  giving  laboratory  assistance  or  ex- 
pert advice.  It  might  be  well,  however,  to  limit  federal  aid  to  municipali- 
ties which  apply  through  their  state  board  of  health,  possibly  with  power 
to  apply  direct  in  stipulated  exceptional  cases. 

None  of  my  remarks  are  designed  to  be  unfriendly  to  the  general 
movement  for  a  federal  department  of  health  (or  perhaps,  better,  a 
bureau,  as  was  originally  proposed).  Personally,  I  heartily  favor  the 
general  purport  of  Senator  Owen's  bill  for  a  department  of  health,  now 
before  Congress.  That  bill  proposes  little  more  than  a  consolidation  of 
the  many  uncorrelated  health  activities  now  carried  on  by  various  depart- 
mental bureaus.  Such  a  consolidation  is  highly  desirable.  But  if  the 
work  already  being  done  is  to  be  reshaped,  and  perhaps  curtailed  here 
and  increased  there,  it  should  be  remodeled  in  accordance  with  a  definite 
scientific  plan,  after  taking  full  account  of  what  is  already  being  done 
in  the  health-protective  field  by  fifty  states  and  thousands  of  municipali- 
ties, and  with  a  clear  conception  of  the  health  functions  which  may 
legally  and  wisely  be  assumed  by  the  federal  government. 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  The  next  report  is  from  the  Special  Committee 
on  Municipal  Franchises,  on  "  The  League's  Franchise  Policy "  to  be 
presented  by  Mr.  Robert  Treat  Paine  of  Boston. 

MR.  PAINE:  Mr.  President,  this  committee  was  appointed  only  last 
summer,  and  this  report  is  in  the  nature  of  a  preliminary  presentation. 
I  would  say  that  this  report,  however,  comes  from  the  committee  as  a 
whole  and  is  not  a  report  of  any  one  member. 

REPORT  OF  THE  NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE  COMMITTEE 
ON  FRANCHISES. 

Your  Committee  on  Franchises,  appointed  early  last  summer,  has  given 
some  attention  to  the  papers  presented  at  the  annual  meetings  of  the 
League  since  the  Municipal  Program  was  adopted  in  order  to  familiarize 
itself  with  the  ground  covered  by  the  League  in  these  recent  annual  meet- 
ings and  to  see  whether  suggestions  made  in  those  papers  were  worthy 
of  further  consideration  by  the  League. 

Your  committee  feels  that  in  the  Program  of  the  League  some  of  the 
principles  relating  to  franchises  demand  further  elaboration  and  some 
of  them  require  a  modification  or  qualification  of  statement. 


450  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

I.  The  Program  provided  for  careful  passage  of  franchise  grants  by 
the  city  council  and  mayor.  It  also  looks  favorably  upon  and  provides 

for  the  adoption  by  cities  of  direct  legislation  where 
Franchise  there  is  a  popular  demand  therefor.  The  strong 

Committee  tendency  of  late  has  been  to  provide  for   a  popular 

Report  safeguard   against  an  improper  grant  of   a   franchise 

by  the  local  legislature.  That  franchises  may  be  wisely 
granted  and  only  for  the  public  welfare,  it  seems  that  there  should  be 
provision  in  connection  with  the  granting  of  franchises  for  an  optional 
referendum. 

I.  The  Program  provides  for  careful  passage  of  franchise  grants  by 
tenure  twenty-one  years.  The  movement  for  short  term  tenures  is  strong 
and  widespread  and  is  highly  commendable  as  a  reaction  against  the  un- 
duly long  or  perpetual  franchise.  The  committee  feels  that  so  short  a 
term  is  not  necessarily  an  ideal  provision.  Some  papers  at  the  annual 
meetings  of  the  League  have  argued  strongly  for  revocable  franchises  as 
in  Massachusetts  and  elsewhere.  The  committee  feels  that  the  twenty- 
one  years  term  might  wisely  be  modified  in  the  direction  of  a  terminable 
franchise  subject  to  proper  provision  for  purchase  by  the  community. 

III.  The  Program  provides  that  compensation,  if  arranged  for,  should 
be  based  upon  a  percentage  of  the  gross  receipts.     Such  a  rule  seems 
to    the    committee    too    rigid.     Whether    under    any    circumstances    com- 
pensation for  the  use  of  the  city's  streets  should  be  paid  into  the  public 
treasury  to  be  applied  in  the  reduction  of  general  taxes  is  a  question 
deserving  serious  consideration.     Possibly  good  public  policy  would  re- 
quire in  some,  or  all,  cases  that  moneys  paid  as  compensation  for  fran- 
chise privileges  should  be  devoted  to  the  improvement  or  extension  of  the 
utility  service  or  to  a  fund  for  the  future  purchase  of  the  plant. 

IV.  The  committee   feels  that  there  should  be  further  emphasis  laid 
upon  the  need  of  wise  and  full  public  regulation;  that  there  should  be 
a  special  local  commission  or  commissioner  with  whom  would  rest  the 
expert  knowledge  and  duty  and  power  continually  to  guard  the  public 
welfare.     There  would  need  to  be  co-operation  or  co-ordination  arranged 
with  the  state  supervisory  board. 

V.  The  committee  feels  that  there  is  a  need  of  further  study  as  to  the 
adoption  by  the  League  in  its  Program  of  such  provision  as  shall  elimin- 
ate entirely  the  element  of  speculative  return  from  any  private  investment 
in  municipal  public  utilities  but  shall  also  in  fairness  to  such  investment, 
give  to  the  investor  a  reasonable  assurance  that  the  public  authorities 
will  not  use  the  rate-making  powers  to  interfere  with  the  earning,  not 
only  of  a  fair  but  also  of  a  certain  return  upon  the  money  invested. 

VI.  The   committee   feels  that  there   should  be   further   study  of  the 
question  of  the  desirability  of  amortisation  of  capital  of  private  corpor- 
ations managing  public  utilities. 

VII.  If  municipalities  are  to  be  enabled  to  use  the  right  the  Program 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


451 


thinks  should  be  granted  them  of  indulging  in  municipal  ownership,  if 
deemed  necessary,  then  your  committee  feels  that  it  is  important  to 
emphasize  the  necessity  of  exempting  from  the  limitation  upon  the 
issue  of  its  debt  of  the  bonds  issued  for  revenue-producing  utilities. 

Your  committee  would  therefore  respectfully  suggest  to  the  Executive 
Committee  that  the  field  for  further  investigation  and  study  seems  to 
be  important  enough  to  warrant  the  appointment  of  a  larger  committee 
by  your  body  and  of  a  special  session  to  be  devoted  to  franchise  topics 
at  the  next  annual  meeting. 

JOSEPH  P.  COTTON,  JR., 

DELOS  F.  WILCOX, 

'ROBERT  TREAT  PAINE,   Chairman. 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  Under  the  established  practice  of  the  League 
all  of  these  reports  of  committees  are  considered  by  the  Executive 
Committee. 

MAYO  FESLER:  Mr.  President,  before  the  next  speaker  rises,  may  I 
offer  this  resolution? 

"  Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  five  be  appointed  by  the  president  of 
the  League  to  prepare  and  submit  appropriate  resolutions  expressing  the 
appreciation  of  the  entire  membership  to  Hon.  Charles  J.  Bonaparte  for 
his  long  and  effective  service  as  president  of  the  National  Municipal 
League." 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  It  is  very  important  gentlemen,  that  reformers 
should  be  thoroughly  practical,  and  in  order  to  be  thoroughly  practical, 
they  must  outgrow  any  of  those  somewhat  antiquated  prejudices  which 
receive  the  name  of  modesty.  [Laughter.]  Therefore  I  take  great  pleas- 
ure in  entertaining  this  resolution  [renewed  laughter],  and  I  rule  upon 
it  that  it  will  stand  for  action  at  the  morning  session  of  the  League  to- 
morrow. To  my  great  regret  I  am  compelled  by  a  professional  engage- 
ment to  leave  here  to-morrow  morning,  and  therefore,  as  I  shall  be 
absent,  some  of  the  members  who  may  desire  to  express  frankly  their 
opinion  [laughter]  as  to  the  value  of  the  services  mentioned  in  the  re- 
solution, will  have  that  opportunity,  with  the  understanding  that  no 
stenographic  report  of  the  debate  will  be  taken.  [Laughter.] 

The  next  business  is  the  report  of  Dr.  Horace  E.  Flack  on  Reference 
Libraries. 

DR.  FLACK  :  Before  reading  this  report  I  would  like  to  say  that  the 
report  has  been  submitted  to  all  the  members  of  the  committee,  and  with 
the  exception  of  probably  one  or  two  points  on  which  there  were  some 
slight  differences  of  opinion  as  to  methods  and  plans,  I  may  say  that 
the  committee  approved  of  the  report  which  is  now  submitted.1 

1  The  Committee  on  Municipal  Reference  Libraries  is  composed  of  Dr. 
William  H.  Allen,  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research,  New  York  City;  Milton 


452  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

MUNICIPAL  REFERENCE  LIBRARIES. 

The  question  of  securing  good,  efficient  municipal  government  is  one 
of  the  biggest  problems  confronting  the  American  people  of  to-day.  The 
people  are  awakening  to  the  fact  that  inefficiency,  poor  laws  and  mal- 
administration result  in  high  taxes,  poor  service,  and  unsanitary  condi- 
tions. They  realize  as  never  before  what  inefficiency  and  poor  laws  really 
cost  the  community.  Some  of  this  cost  is  of  course  due  to  vicious  and 
incompetent  officials,  but  the  greater  part  is  due  to  ignorance,  both  on 
the  part  of  the  citizens  and  the  officials.  Honesty  and  sincerity  on  the 
part  of  municipal  officials  are  not  the  only  qualities  needed  to  make  our 
municipal  governments  what  they  should  be ;  it  is  also  necessary  to  have 
efficiency;  and  efficiency  can  only  be  secured,  even  with  the  ablest  men 
at  the  helm,  by  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  facts  and  conditions  relat- 
ing to  each  and  every  question  which  comes  up  for  consideration. 

Every  one  admits  that  our  city  governments  need  improving,  that 
efficiency  is  woefully  lacking,  but  the  difficult  problem  is  how  to  secure 
efficient  government.  Experience  has  demonstrated  that  the  best  and 
ablest  of  officials  have  made  mistakes.  Many  of  these  mistakes  have  been 
due  to  lack  of  knowledge.  There  has  been  too  much  self-complacency 
in  the  administration  of  city  affairs,  each  city  trying  to  solve  certain 
problems  or  undertaking  municipal  enterprises  regardless  of  the  experi- 
ences of  other  cities.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  officials  of  one  city  rarely 
know  about  the  experiences  of  other  cities.  The  result  is  that  nearly 
every  city  goes  through  the  same  experience,  and  a  dear  one  it  has  been. 
Instead  of  first  seeing  what  other  cities  have  done,  how  they  have  solved 
or  tried  to  solve  the  same  problems,  the  administration  of  each  city  and 
to  a  great  extent  each  successive  administration  of  the  city  undertakes 
to  carry  out  certain  preconceived  notions,  whether  practical  or  not,  and 
every  one  is  familiar  with  the  evil  consequent  results.  It  is  a  well  de- 
monstrated fact  that  civilization  is  based  on  past  experiences,  and  the 
failure  of  municipal  government  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  our  city 
governments  do  not  profit  by  the  past  experiences  of  other  cities. 

During  the  past  few  years  efforts  have  been  made  to  improve  the 
legislation  of  some  of  our  states  by  means  of  legislative  reference 
bureaus.  It  may  be  said  that  these  efforts  have  passed 
Legislative  the  experimental  stage  and  that  these  bureaus  or  de- 

Reference  partments  have  been  successful.  Such  departments 

Bureaus  have  been  of  great  benefit  to  members  of  the  legis- 

lature and  to  administrative  officials  who  have  tried 

J.  Foreman,  City  Council,  Chicago,  111.;  Horace  E.  Deming,  New  York 
City;  George  Godard,  State  Library,  Hartford,  Conn.;  Clarence  B.  Lester, 
Legislative  Reference  Department,  New  York  State  Library,  Albany,  N.Y.  ; 
Hon.  Oscar  Leser,  Tax  Court.  Baltimore,  Md. ;  Dr.  Charles  McCarthy, 
Legislative  Reference  Librarian,  Madison,  Wis. ;  Hon.  Thomas  L.  Mont- 
gomery, State  Librarian,  Harrisburg,  Pa. ;  Prof.  Charles  E.  Merriam, 
University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. ;  Robert  Treat  Paine,  Jr.,  Boston,  Mass. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


453 


to  give  their  best  services  to  their  respective  communities.  The  idea 
has  spread  until  to-day  such  bureaus,  in  one  form  or  another,  are  to  be 
found  in  Wisconsin,  New  York,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Pennsylvania,  Rhode 
Island,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  California,  North  Dakota,  Michigan, 
Iowa,  Montana,  Alabama  and  Nebraska.  The  advantages  to  be  gained 
by  such  departments  were  so  apparent  that  the  question  occurred  to  some 
whether  the  same  idea  could  be  applied  to  cities  with  beneficial  results. 
It  would  seem  more  essential  to  have  such  departments  for  cities  than  for 
the  states,  since  so  many  matters  vitally  affecting  the  lives  of  those  who 
reside  in  cities  depend  upon  the  city  government.  The  water  supply,  milk 
supply,  police  and  fire  protection,  schools,  lighting,  transportation,  and 
all  other  necessities  requisite  to  life  in  cities  are  absolutely  dependent 
upon  municipal  officials,  and  if  the  city  government  is  inefficient,  if  the 
funds  for  the  several  municipal  functions,  or  for  any  one  of  them,  are 
improperly,  unwisely,  or  imprudently  spent,  some  other  department  must 
suffer  for  lack  of  funds,  and  unsanitary  conditions  follow,  or  proper 
school  facilities,  police  or  fire  protection,  etc.,  are  wanting. 

It  may  seem  a  small  matter  that  $10,000  is  squandered  here,  $50,000 
there,  etc.,  but  the  continued  practice  of  this  kind  soon  bears  fruit,  for 
it  means  that  some  essential  or  meritorious  function  is  being  neglected. 
$50,000  appropriated  to  try  some  worthless  experiment  or  $100,000 
wasted  in  the  purchase  of  city  supplies,  $200,000  for  salaries  for  clerks 
not  needed,  either  means  that  the  health  department,  the  schools  and 
playgrounds,  the  police,  the  fire  departments,  or  care  of  delinquent  chil- 
dren, will  not  get  some  needed  appropriation,  or  that  an  extra  burden  is 
put  on  the  taxpayers,  the  result  frequently  being  both. 

What  can  be  and  should  be  prevented,  however,  is  the  repeated  waste. 
It  is  perfectly  proper  for  a  city  to  try  some  new  experiment  if  there  is 
a  prospect  of  success  and  if  there  is  a  reasonable  hope 
Prevention  of  that  conditions  can  be  improved  by  it.  But  there  is 
Waste  not  only  no  excuse,  it  almost  seems  criminal,  that 

one  city  after  another  should  try  the  same  thing  after 
it  has  been  shown  to  be  impracticable,  harmful,  or  useless.  There  might 
have  been  excuse  for  such  a  condition  before  the  advent  of  the  railroad, 
the  telegraph  and  the  telephone,  but  under  present  conditions  there  seems 
absolutely  no  excuse  for  it.  It  is  not  claimed  that  our  city  officials  are 
criminal,  or  that  they  do  not  desire  to  give  good  government,  but  ignor- 
ance of  what  other  cities  have  done  or  are  doing  makes  progress  slow 
and  unduly  expensive. 

Recognizing  this  condition,  and  impressed  by  the  good  results  follow- 
ing the  establishment  of  legislative  reference  bureaus  in  several  of  the 
states,  the  National  Municipal  League  in  1909  appointed  a  committee  to 
report  upon  the  feasibility  and  desirability  of  municipal  reference  libra- 
ries. The  first  work  of  the  committee  was,  of  course,  to  learn  what 
was  being  done  along  this  line,  either  by  special  legislative  reference  or 


454  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

municipal  reference  libraries,  and  inquiries  were  made  of  the  librarians 
of  the  public  libraries  in  all  cities  having  a  population  of  50,000  or  over. 
The  replies  indicate  that  there  is  almost  complete  unanimity  as  to  the 
great  need  for  the  establishment  of  municipal  reference  libraries,  but 
there  was  not  the  same  unanimity  as  to  how  this  should  be  done.  The 
committee  feels  that  these  replies  are  strong  evidence  of  the  need  of 
such  libraries. 

Nearly   a   score   expressed   the   opinion   that   the   municipal    reference 

library  should   be   located  in  the   city   hall   as   a   branch   of   the   public 

library.     Some  were  of  the  opinion  that  such  a  col- 

Location  of  lection  would  be  almost  as  useful  in  the  public  library 

Libraries  building;   but  in   these   cases   it  was   stated   that   the 

library  was  in  very  close  proximity  to  the  city  hall. 

Nearly  all  expressed  the  opinion  that  a  municipal  reference  library  should 

be  under  the  control  of  the  public  library  because  it  would  make  the 

maintenance  and  administration  less  expensive  and  would  also  be  likely 

to  keep  them  out  of  politics. 

There  are  at  the  present  time  only  three  purely  municipal  reference 
libraries  maintained  at  public  expense,  viz.,  those  of  Milwaukee,  Kansas 
City,  Mo.,  and  Baltimore.  The  Baltimore  library,  called  the  Department 
of  Legislative  Reference,  was  created  in  1906  by  an  act  of  the  legislature 
and  went  into  operation  January  I,  1907.  The  Milwaukee  library  was 
created  by  ordinance  soon  after  this,  and  only  within  the  past  few 
months  Kansas  City  has  passed  an  ordinance  creating  such  a  library. 
Both  of  these  follow  very  closely  the  law  creating  the  Baltimore  depart- 
ment. The  board  in  Baltimore  is  composed  of  the  mayor,  city  solicitor, 
president  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  president  of  the  Municipal 
Art  Society,  and  the  president  of  the  Merchants'  and  Manufacturers' 
Association ;  and  that  of  Kansas  City,  of  the  mayor,  president  of  the 
Commercial  Club,  president  of  the  Industrial  Council,  president  of  the 
Kansas  City  Bar  Association,  and  the  president  of  the  City  Club.  The 
public  library  of  Minneapolis  has  only  quite  recently  established  a  muni- 
cipal reference  section  as  a  part  of  the  library.  This  is  the  first  case  in 
which  a  public  library  has  undertaken  this  work,  and  it  will  be  quite 
interesting  and  valuable  no  doubt  to  watch  the  development  of  the  work 
there. 

The  Civic  League  of  St.  Louis  submitted  certain  recommendations  to 
the  Board  of  Freeholders  now  drafting  a  proposed  charter  for  the  city, 
and  among  these  was  one  for  the  establishment  of  a  municipal  reference 
library.  At  the  present  time  the  matter  is  being  considered  by  the  offi- 
cials of  the  public  library  and  it  seems  quite  probable  that  St.  Louis  will 
soon  have  such  a  library,  either  as  a  branch  of  the  public  library  or  as 
a  separate  department  of  the  city  government,  as  is  the  case  in  Baltimore, 
Milwaukee  and  Kansas  City.  Boston  and  Chicago  have  had  statistical 
bureaus  for  several  years,  but  there  is  at  present  some  agitation  for 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


455 


establishing  a  municipal  reference  library  in  Chicago,  and  this  may  mean 
a  merging  of  the  present  bureau  of  statistics  with  it.  There  is  also  a 
bureau  of  statistics  and  information  in  Newark,  N.  J.,  the  bureau  being 
under  the  direction  of  the  city  clerk.  The  chief  objection  to  the  latter 
is  that  the  bureau  is  subject  to  political  changes,  which  may  interfere 
with  its  efficiency  in  the  future. 

The  Universities  of  Wisconsin  and  Kansas  have  established  muni- 
cipal reference  bureaus  to  furnish  information  to  all  the  cities  of  those 
states.  A  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  has  also  been  established  quite 
recently  by  the  Finance  Commission  of  Boston.  Its 
Establishment  of  main  purpose  is  to  collect  information  for  the  Finance 
New  Libraries  Commission  and  to  examine  and  study  the  city  depart- 
ments of  Boston  with  a  view  to  municipal  improve- 
ment. The  extent  of  the  work  will  depend  upon  the  attitude  of  the  city 
council  in  making  appropriations.  There  is  also  a  municipal  reference 
bureau  in  Los  Angeles,  but  in  this  case  the  bureau  is  under  private 
auspices  and  management. 

The  question  of  establishing  a  municipal  reference  library  is  also  being 
considered  in  Cleveland  and  steps  will  probably  be  taken  in  the  near 
future  with  this  end  in  view.  Efforts  have  already  been  made  to  secure 
such  a  library  in  Washington,  D.  C,  as  a  part  of  the  public  library,  but 
Congress  failed  to  make  a  sufficient  appropriation  for  this  at  the  last 
session.  It  is  stated  that  the  Board  of  District  Commissioners  realize 
the  value  of  having  such  a  bureau  and  hope  to  secure  an  appropriation 
for  it. 

That  there  is  need  for  some  such  organization  or  department  as  the 
municipal  reference  library  for  the  collecting,  collating  and  filing  of  in- 
formation on  municipal,  social,  political  and  economic  questions,  is  ap- 
parent to  every  one  who  has  ever  given  any  thought  to  such  questions 
or  has  tried  to  find  out  any  thing  about  his  own  or  any  other  city 
government. 

In  the  consideration  of  this  question,  the  committee  has  been  con- 
fronted with  the  proposition  as  to  whether  such  libraries  should  be 
separate  and  distinct  departments  as  in  Baltimore,  Milwaukee  and  Kansas 
City,  or  whether  they  should  be  under  the  control  of  the  public  libraries, 
and  if  the  latter,  whether  in  the  public  library  itself  or  as  a  branch 
in  the  city  hall.  The  question  of  the  qualifications  of  the  head  of  such 
a  bureau  as  well  as  the  methods  of  his  selection  was  also  given  careful 
consideration,  for  it  was  felt  that  these  two  points  were  vital  to  the  suc- 
cess of  the  movement.  Another  very  important  feature  considered  by 
the  Committee  was  the  scope  of  the  work  of  municipal  reference  libraries, 
in  other  words  the  functions  of  such  libraries. 

After  careful  deliberation,  the  committee  has  reached  the  following 
conclusions : 

i.  That  municipal  reference  libraries  should  be  established  in  all 
large  cities. 


456  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

2.  That  as  a  general  rule  such  libraries  should  be  under  the  control 

of  the  public  library. 

Recommendations      3.  That   such   libraries   should   be   located   in   the 
City  Hall  where  feasible. 

4.  That  the  qualifications  for  the  head  of  such  a  library  should  be  a 
liberal   education,   with   special   training   in   political   science,   economics, 
municipal  government,  and  methods  of  organization  and  administration, 
and  he  should  be  selected  for  merit  alone. 

5.  That  the  head  of  the  municipal  reference  library  be  selected  by  that 
method   which,   in   the   particular   city,   will,   under   the  local   conditions 
there  prevailing,  tend  most  completely  to  eliminate  political  considerations. 
In  some  cities,  the  most  satisfactory  results  may  be  obtained  by  lodging 
the  appointing  power  with   the  public  librarian  or   library  trustees.     In 
other  cities,  conditions  may  make  it  advisable  to  have  appointment  made 
by  a  select,  impartial  and  non-political  board. 

6.  That  the  municipal  reference  library  be  made  the  agency  for  the 
exchange  of  municipal  documents. 

7.  The  functions  of  the  library  should  not  be  restricted  to  any  par- 
ticular phase  of  work  so  long  as  that  work  relates  only  to  the  collecting, 
collating,   compiling  and  disseminating  of  data  or  information.     It  will 
also  be  one  of  the  functions  of  the  library  to  aid  in  the  drafting  of 
ordinances.     Of  course,  the  principal  work  will  be  concerning  municipal 
questions  and  special  efforts  should  be  made  to  secure  such  information 
for  the  city  officials  who  are  responsible  for  the  administration  of  the 
city's  affairs,  but  to  be  of  the  greatest  value  such  a  library  must  under- 
take to  furnish  information  to  the  public  generally.     Such  a  bureau  will 
be  used  extensively  by  the  press  and  this  is  one  of  the  best  ways  of 
reaching    the    public.     Social,    civic    and    improvement    associations    will 
also  frequently  have  occasion  to  use  such  a  library  and  its  value  to  a 
city  cannot  easily  be  overestimated.     If  the  bureau  be  under  the  control 
of  the  public  library,  it  would  seem  advisable  to  issue  a  bulletin  con- 
taining interesting  comments  for  newspaper  purposes  and  showing  how 
the  reference  library  can  be  of  assistance  to  officials  and  to  the  public  as 
each  matter  of  general  interest  gets  the  center  of  the  stage. 

It  would  also  be  expected  that  the  reference  libraries  tear  up  and  file 
all  helpful  things  together — all  the  information  possible  on  each  par- 
ticular subject,  so  that  when  one  wants  to  know  what  has  been  said, 
for  example  about  the  health  department,  police  department,  etc.,  it  will 
not  be  necessary  to  go  over  fifty  or  one  hundred  volumes. 

The  head  of  the  library  should  by  all  means  maintain  a  neutral  attitude 
on  all  questions;  for  the  very  moment  he  begins  to  advocate  or  oppose 
any  measure  or  proposition,  he  will  begin  to  make  less  effective  the  work 
of  his  department.  He  must  not  make  it  possible  for  any  one  to  say  that 
he  is  collecting  information  because  of  any  personal  bias  of  his  own. 
His  only  interest  should  be  to  secure  the  data  and  let  the  facts  speak  for 
themselves. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


457 


In  reaching  these  conclusions,  we  were  aware  that  conditions  existed 
in  some  cities  where  better  results  might  be  had  by  the  establishment  of 
separate  and  distinct  bureaus,  but  where  this  is  done  we  cannot  urge 
too  strongly  that  the  department  be  placed  under  the  control  of  a  non- 
political  board.  If  such  libraries  become  subject  to  political  patronage, 
they  are  likely  to  become  not  only  useless,  but  really  harmful.  Unless 
they  can  be  inaugurated  under  conditions  which  will  keep  them  out  of 
politics,  it  would  be  better  not  to  have  them. 

In  presenting  the  above  recommendations,  the  committee  realizes  that 
such  libraries  of  themselves  will  not  bring  about  an  immediate  reform 
in  city  government  nor  will  efficiency  in  municipal  administration  follow 
as  a  necessary  result  of  their  establishment.  But  it  is  respectfully  sub- 
mitted that  such  a  library  would  be  a  valuable  instrument  or  agency  in 
the  efforts  to  make  our  municipal  governments  more  business-like  and 
more  efficient.  The  library  will  not  of  itself  do  away  with  the  abuses 
which  exist,  but  it  will  funish  the  means  whereby  such  abuses  can  be 
lessened,  for  it  will  be  able  to  supply  the  data  and  the  knowledge  which 
are  essential  to  all  good  government. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
LEGISLATIVE  REFERENCE  WORK,  STATE  AND  MUNICIPAL. 

Baltimore — Department  of  Legislative  Reference.     Annual  Report,   1907, 

1908,  1909. 
Baltimore — Department   of   Legislative   Reference.     New   department  of 

legislative  reference,   Baltimore,   remarks   at  a  round-table,   Feb.  26, 

1907,  by  Theodore  Marburg  and  others.    43p. 
Baltimore's  new  reference  department.     Public  Service,  Sept.  1907. 
Baxter,  Rex  M.    Legislative  reference  library.    Arena,  June,  1908.    7p. 
Briggs,  Walter  B.    The  public  library  and  the  city  government.     Library 

Journal,  Oct.  1908.     (Separate  pamphlet,  5p.) 
Brigham,  Johnson.    Legislative  reference  work  without  an  appropriation. 

A.  L.  A.  Bull.  1 :  200-12.    July,  1907. 
Brindley,   John    E.    Legislative   reference   movement.     Iowa   Journal   of 

History  &  Politics,  Jan.,  1909.    9p. 
Bruncken,  Ernest.    Defective  methods  of  legislation.    American  Political 

Science  Review,  May,  1909.    2p. 

The  library  as  an  aid  to  good  government.     (Typewritten.) 

Sociological    department    of    California    state    library.     News    & 

Notes  of  California  libraries,  Apr.,  1009.    4p. 

Campbell,    Robert   A.    Legislative   and   municipal   reference   department. 

News  &  Notes  of  California  libraries,  Oct.,  1910,  p.  534. 
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Bulletin,  v.  2,  no.  12,  July  8,  1908.    5p. 
Commons,  John  R.     One  way  to  get  sane  legislation.     Review  of  Reviews, 

Dec.,   1905. 
Darlow,  G.     Municipal  section  of  a  public  library.     Public  Libraries,  13 : 

4-6.    Ja».,  1008. 
Dudgeon,  M.  S.    The  Wisconsin  legislative  library.    Yale  Review,  Nov., 

1007.    8p. 
Education  for  legislators.    Boston  Transcript,  Dec.  6,   1905. 


458  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

Flack,  Horace  E.  The  Department  of  Legislative  Reference  in  Balti- 
more. Municipal  Engineering,  Sept.,  1908.  7p. 

Municipal  reference  libraries..     National  Municipal  League,  Pro- 
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Good  check  for  the  riot  of  legislation.  World's  Work,  n:  6812-3. 
Nov.,  1005. 

Hadley,  Chalmers.  Municipal  reference  work.  Public  Libraries,  12: 
232-4.  June,  1907. 

Indiana,  Establishment  in  Indiana  State  Library  Bull.  14:  1-2.    July,  1906. 

Lapp,  John  A.  Legislative  reference  department.  Public  officials  maga- 
zine, Indianapolis,  July,  1910.  7p. 

A  legislative  clearing  house.  N.  Y.  Post,  Dec.  8,  1905.  Ditto,  Nation. 
Dec.  14,  1905.  Also  communication  of  Alfred  W.  Booream  in  N.  Y. 
Post,  Dec.  16,  1905. 

A  legislative  expert.     Brown  Alumni  Monthly,  Apr.,  1906. 

Lester,  Clarence  B.  Legislative  reference.  Ind.  State  Library  Bull.  17: 
1-2.  Oct.,  1906. 

Legislative   reference   work   and   the   law   library.    Law   Library 

Journal,  Oct.,   1908.    6p. 

Lobbying,  old  and  new.     London  Times,  Apr.  14,  1906. 

MacCarthy,    Charles.     City   library   as    a    business    investment.     National 

Municipal   League,   Proceedings  of   Pittsburgh   conference   for  good 

city  government,  1008,  pp.  317-27. 

The   future  of  the  state  library.     Proceedings  of  National   As- 
sociation of  state  libraries,  June  30,  1906.    8p. 

Legislative  reference  bureau.     In   Chicago  City  Club   Bull.   Dec. 

9,  1908.    5p. 

Legislative   reference   department   with   bibliography.     Wisconsin 


Free  Library  Commission,  circular  of  information,  no.  6.     3Op. 

MacGregor,  Ford  H.  The  municipal  reference  bureau  of  Wisconsin. 
American  City,  Feb.,  1910,  pp.  65-8. 

Merchants'  Association  of  New  York  (City).  List  of  business  or  com- 
mercial, civic,  board  of  trade,  municipal,  legislative  reference  libraries ; 
and  department  of  public  and  other  libraries  devoted  to  these  topics. 
June,  1909.  2p. 

Merwin,  Samuel.  Putting  the  lobbyists  on  the  square.  Success  Maga- 
zine, Feb.,  1907. 

Meyer,  E.  C.  Helping  cities  to  help  themselves;  how  the  state  university 
through  its  extension  division  is  placing  the  practical  assistance  of 
experts  at  the  disposal  of  Wisconsin  cities.  La  Follette's,  Sept.  25, 
1909,  pp.  8-9. 

Mowry,  Don  E.  Growing  complexities  of  legislation.  77th  general  as- 
sembly record  of  Ohio,  Jan.  27,  1906. 

Municipal  reference  libraries.     City  Hall,  Oct.,   1908.     3  p. 

Reference   libraries   in    cities — Baltimore   as   a   type.     Public   Li- 
braries, 12:  387-91.     Dec.,  1907. 

Municipal   legislative   reference   work  in   Baltimore.     Dial,    May  7,    1907, 

p.  277. 

Municipal  reference  bureau.     American  Municipalities,  Apr.,  1907. 
Municipal    reference    libraries.      Municipal    Journal    &    Engineer,    Nov. 

13,  1907- 

A  national  museum  of  comparative  legislation.     Social  Service,  Oct.,  1906. 
A   new   and    important   phase    of    library   work.     Wisconsin   Journal    of 

Education,  June,   1906. 

Newark's  bureau  of  statistical  information.     City  Hall,   Sept.,    1908.    2p. 
An  official  legislative  adviser.    The  Outlook,  Feb.  18,  1905. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 

Ohio    State    Library.     Need   of    a   legislative    reference    department    for 

Ohio.    Articles  by   H.   W.   Crist,   C.   B.   Galbreath   and  J.   A.  Lapp, 

with  bibliography.     i6p. 
Pennsylvania  Bar  Association.    Address  of  Robert  Snodgrass  at  the  i4th 

annual  meeting,  June  23,  1908. 
Phillips,  John  B.     Scientific  assistance  in  law-making.    Univ.  of  Colorado 

Studies,  v.  5,  no.  i.    Dec.,  1907,  pp.  5-16. 
Ranck,    Samuel    H.     Municipal    legislative    libraries:     should    they    be 

established  as  a  part  of  the  public  library  or  city.     Library  Journal, 

Aug.,  1909.     (Separate  pamphlet,  6p.) 

Public  library  as  a  part  of  the  municipal  government.    Library 

Journal,  32:  432-3. 
Robinson,    L.    N.    The    German    Stadtetag.      Annals    of    the    American 

Academy,  May,  1908.     (Describes  a  special  library  dealing  with  city 

affairs,  established  in  Berlin  in  1906.) 
Sane  legislation.     Public  Policy,  Dec.  16,  1905. 
Schaffner,    Margaret.      Wisconsin    legislative    reference    library.       Iowa 

Journal  of  History  &  Politics,  July,  1906. 

Sheldon,   Addison    E.    Legislative   reference   department.    Nebraska   Li- 
brary Bull.  no.  3.     Nov.,  1906. 
Stimson,   Frederic  J.     The  legislative  reference  of  the   future.     Bulletin 

of   the   American    Library   Association,    Bretton    Woods    conference, 

Sept.,  1909,  pp.  301-308. 
Washington — Legislative  reference  department.   Washington  state  library, 

9th  biennial  report,  1906. 
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work.     Proceedings    of    National    Association    of    State    Libraries, 

June  30,  1906.    sp. 

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Proposed   library   of    municipal    affairs    and    city   department   li- 
braries.    Library  Journal,  June,  1908,  pp.  224-6. 

Special  libraries.     Library  journal,  Jan.,  1906. 

Two  decades  of  comparative  legislation.    Law  Library  Journal, 


Oct.,  1909.    6p. 

Wisconsin  legislative  reference  work.  Wisconsin  Library  Bull.  2 :  53-6. 
July,  1906. 

Woodruff,  Clinton  Rogers.  Improvement  of  legislation  through  co- 
operation and  trained  experts.  Living  Church,  Feb.  6,  1909.  5p. 

Woodruff,  Clinton  'Rogers.  Legislative  reference  work  and  its  opportuni- 
ties. Public  Libraries,  Oct.,  1908.  Same.  National  Association  of 
State  Libraries,  Proceedings,  1908.  6p. 

PRESIDENT  BONAPARTE:  The  next  and  last  report  which  we  are  to  re- 
ceive is  in  the  form  of  a  paper  on,  "  The  Public  Library  as  a  Factor  in 
Civic  Development,"  by  Mr.  Samuel  H.  Ranck,  of  Grand  Rapids,  Librarian 
of  the  Public  Library  of  that  city. 

[For  Mr.  Ranck's  paper  see  page  385.] 

MR.  RANCK  (continuing)  :  There  is  one  point  in  Dr.  Flack's  paper  that 
I  might  speak  of  right  here,  namely :  That  whatever  department  handles  the 
municipal  reference  work  o^  a  city,  it  ought  to  handle  the  exchange  work 
of  municipal  publications  for  that  city.  In  other  words,  the  distribution 
of  municipal  documents  and  publications  in  our  cities  ought  to  be  cen- 
tralized in  an  office  of  that  kind.  In  most  cities  that  has  not  been  done. 

Adjourned  until  3  P.  M. 


460  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

TUESDAY  AFTERNOON  SESSION. 

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER  15,  1910,  3  p.  M. 

MR.  ROBERT  TREAT  PAINE,  of  Boston,  Chairman  of  the  Franchise 
Committee,  in  the  chair. 

CHAIRMAN  PAINE:  I  am  going  to  call  upon  the  last  speaker  first.  That 
paper  is  a  pretty  complete  one,  dealing  first  with  the  "  Elements  of  a 
constructive  franchise  policy."  It  is  to  be  given  you  by  a  man  who 
perhaps  as  well  as,  if  not  better  than,  any  of  us,  knows  the  franchise 
question.  He  is  connected  with  the  New  York  Public  Utilities  Com- 
mission, No.  i,  Dr.  Delos  F.  Wilcox. 

[For  Dr.  Wilcox's  paper  see  page  170.] 

DR.  WILCOX  (continuing)  :  That,  Mr.  Chairman,  in  a  brief  way,  pre- 
sents the  elements  of  a  constructive  street  railway  franchise,  which  could 
be  applied  to  any  other  public  utility,  with  proper  modification.  There 
are  two  or  three  fundamental  things  that  I  think  we  ought  to  look  out 
for.  One  is  that  the  enormous  capitalization  of  public  utilities  that  is 

going  on  and  on  and  on,  never  being  paid  off,  should 
Enormous  be  subjected  to  a  process  of  diminution,  so  that  the 

Capitalization         purchase  clause  would  not  be  a  mere  name,  but  would 

in  fact  provide  a  way  in  which  municipal  ownership 
in  the  future  could  be  obtained  if  a  city  wants  to  take  up  that  policy,  and 
if  it  does  not  wish  to  take  up  that  policy,  at  least  the  utility  can  be  re- 
lieved from  the  enormous  burden  of  unlimited  fixed  charges  to  which 
almost  all  utilities  are  now  subjected. 

In  the  second  place,  the  indeterminate  franchise  with  the  right  to  pur- 
chase retained  in  the  city,  will  preserve  to  the  city  uniformly,  con- 
tinuously, at  all  times,  the  fundamental  control  over  the  streets,  and  the 
detailed  provisions  or  the  disposition  of  the  gross  earnings  will  provide 
that  the  utility  shall  be  treated  as  something  not  going  to  stop  at  the 
end  of  ten,  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  but  as  something  which  is  going 
right  on  as  long  as  there  is  any  need  for  it,  and  consequently,  the  prop- 
erty devoted  to  that  utility  should  be  kept  up  continuously  at  the  high- 
est state  of  practical  efficiency;  and  so  far  as  rates  are  concerned,  al- 
though there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  agitation  for  lower  rates,  I  think 
that  wherever  it  has  come  to  a  real  test  we  have  found  that  the  people 
are  willing  to  pay  what  the  service  is  worth,  what  it  costs.  What  the 
people  object  to  is  the  giving  of  privileges  for  the  exploitation  of  public 
property  for  private  benefit.  If  the  capital  is  limited  and  the  return  is 
limited  and  certain,  I  do  not  believe  there  will  be  any  great  difficulty  in 
getting  our  municipal  ownership  and  anti-municipal  ownership  people 
together.  [Applause.] 

MR.  CHASE:  What  we  endeavor  to  do  in  municipal  matters  is  to  get 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  461 

away  from  complexity  and  get  more  simplicity.  In  connection  with 
these  reserve  funds  for  depreciation,  and  the  other  reserves  that  Mr. 
Wilcox  provides,  we  are  going  to  get  into  an  exceedingly  complex 
situation,  particularly  if  it  is  done  under  the  sinking  fund  provision. 

CHAIRMAN  PAINE:  The  next  paper  is  a  very  interesting  account  of  the 
fight  over  the  franchise  in  Kansas  City.  We  are  fortunate  to  have  with 
us  Mr.  J.  W.  S.  Peters  of  that  city,  a  civil  service  commissioner. 
[Applause.] 

[For  Mr.  Peter's  paper  see  page  156.] 

CHARLES  P.  PETTUS,  of  St.  Louis:  Does  Dr.  Wilcox  intend  to  appraise 
the  going  value  of  a  plant.     In  appraising  a  plant  he 
Going  Value  allows   for  cost   of   reproduction   but   does   not   allow 

for  the  "  going "  value  that  is  generally  allowed. 

DR.  WILCOX  :  This  is  a  very  complex  subject.  I  have  not  attempted 
in  this  paper  to  go  into  the  details  as  to  how  an  appraisal  should  be 
made.  I  would  say,  however,  that  if  it  is  the  franchise  value  of  good 
will  that  you  refer  to,  I  would  cut  it  out  entirely.  If  it  means  the  value 
of  the  plant  in  condition  ready  for  operation,  I  would  include  it ;  but  that 
is  a  party  of  the  cost  of  physical  construction. 

MR.  STILES  P.  JONES,  of  Minneapolis:  Would  you  not  eliminate  the 
term,  "  going  concern  "  ? 

DR.  WILCOX  :  I  do  not  like  it  myself. 

CHAIRMAN  PAINE  :  One  other  paper  has  been  prepared  for  this  after- 
noon's meeting  relating  to  street  railways,  written  by  Mr.  Paul  Leake, 
dealing  with  the  Detroit  street  railway  situation. 

[For  Mr.  Leake's  paper  see  page  120.] 

CHAIRMAN  PAINE  :  The  next  paper  is  headed  "  The  Minneapolis  Settle- 
ment", by  Stiles  P.  Jones,  Secretary  of  the  Voters'  League. 
[For  Mr.  Jones'  paper  see  page  142.] 

CHAIRMAN  PAINE:  Another  paper,  on  the  gas  question,  has  been  pre- 
sented to  us,  "The  Sliding  Scale  Method  of  Regulating  Public  Service 
Corporations",  by  Mr.  Edgar  N.  Wrightington,  of  Boston. 

[For  Mr.  Wrightington's  paper  see  page  103.] 

CHAIRMAN  PAINE:  We  now  turn  to  hear  Prof.  Jackson.  In  Massa- 
chusetts we  have  two  or  three  state  commissions  trying  to  regulate  by  their 


462  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

advice,  or  in  some  cases  by  their  orders,  the  public  service  corporations. 

One  of  these  state  commissions  has  lately  been  trying 
Telephones  to  regulate  the  telephone  charges.     It  has  been  quite 

complicated.  There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  bitter 
feeling.  The  commission  employed  Prof.  Jackson,  a  professor  at  the 
Institute  of  Technology,  to  look  into  the  question  and  make  a  report  to 
them  as  to  what  he  found  and  what  he  would  recommend.  The  company  has 
adopted  and  put  into  force  the  recommendations  of  the  commission,  and 
we  have  in  a  sense  a  certain  good  feeling  and  agreement  as  to  the  fair- 
ness of  these  rates  between  the  public  and  the  company.  Therefore 
I  think  you  can  well  look  forward  to  hearing  this  afternoon  with  a  great 
deal  of  pleasure  from  Prof.  Dugald  C.  Jackson.  [Applause.] 
[For  Prof.  Jackson's  paper  see  page  109.] 

MR.  HARPER:  I  would  like  to  ask  Prof.  Jackson  why  the  investment 
per  subscriber  increases  with  the  number  of  messages  used. 

PROF.  JACKSON  :  For  the  very  good  reason  that  the  operator  at  the 
switchboard  can  take  care  of  only  a  certain  number  of  messages  a  day 
with  the  present  methods  of  operating.  The  consequence  is  that  the 
switchboards  have  to  be  bigger,  the  buildings  that  house  them  have  to  be 
bigger,  the  real  estate  upon  which  they  are  located  has  to  be  bigger. 
Moreover,  in  our  large  cities  we  have  multiple  exchanges  and  a  very 
large  proportion  of  the  messages  are  trunked  from  one  exchange  to  an- 
other, and  the  trunks  are  practically  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
trunks.  Therefore  the  expense  of  the  trunks  is  practically  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  messages. 

MR.  HARPER:  That  is  not  the  number  of  messages  per  individual,  but 
the  total  number  of  messages? 

PROF.  JACKSON  :  The  total  number  of  messages  handled,  yes ;  but  if  one 
subscriber  only  calls  for  ten  messages  a  day  his  needs  can  be  taken  care 
of,  or  suppose  we  have  10,000  subscribers  each  calling  for  10  messages  a 
day,  their  needs  can  be  taken  care  of,  with  a  certain  investment;  but  if 
you  have  10,000  offices  that  call  for  60  messages  a  day,  their  requirements 
can  be  taken  care  of  only  by  the  expenditure  of  a  much  larger  sum  for 
plant. 

MR.  HARPER:  But  those  other  10,000  subscribers  are  paying  for  that 
plant. 

PROF.  JACKSON  :  They  are  not  if  you  have  flat  rates. 

MR.  HARPER:  Why?  The  investment  does  not  increase.  I  do  not  see 
how  it  increases.  The  operating  expense  might  increase,  because  you 
might  have  to  have  more  operators. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  463 

A  QUESTION  :  I  should  like  to  ask  two  questions  which  came  up  re- 
cently in  Chicago;  first,  in  regard  to  the  automatic  switchboard,  as  to 
whether  the  automatic  switchboard  will  not  considerably  reduce  the  cost 
of  the  service,  doing  away  with  the  telephone  girl  to  an  almost  complete 
extent;  and,  then,  whether  the  number  of  messages  put  in  will  very  con- 
siderably increase  the  cost  under  the  use  of  the  automatic  exchange 
switchboard. 

PROF.  JACKSON  :  The  automatic  is  not  now  facing  any  commission  so 
far  as  I  know  in  respect  to  rates.  When  the  automatic  plan  is  facing 

them,  then  they  will  have  to  study  that  question.  If 
Automatic  it  does  reduce  the  cost  of  operating  and  also  the 

Telephone  investment  charges,  of  course  the  rates  will  have  to 

Service  go  down,  and  should  go  down,  but  in  the  meantime 

we  have  got  to  look  at  the  thing, — when  I  say  "  we  " 
I  mean  the  citizens,  as  well  as  in  my  own  case,  as  the  engineer  of  the 
commission, — from  the  standpoint  of  what  is  actually  before  us,  which  is 
manual  operation  in  all  instances  of  the  very  great  cities  of  the  country. 

MR.  GEORGE  H.  McGovERN,  of  Wilmington:  We  have  had  an  automatic 
service  for  five  years,  and  it  is  my  understanding  from  the  vice-president 
that  as  the  subscribers  increase  the  general  expense  increases  in  pro- 
portion. That  company  has  had  to  be  merged  with  the  electric  company. 
They  started  out  for  increased  rates,  gradually,  and  they  are  now  even 
with  the  Bell  system.  Its  manager  gave  as  his  reasons  for  the  increase 
in  the  general  expense  item  that  they  had  to  maintain  their  equipment 
not  for  ten  calls  from  each  customer,  but  for  a  call  from  everyone  of 
their  customers  at  one  time.  There  may  be  an  hour  or  two  during  the 
day  when  they  would  all  call,  for  instance,  from  10  to  12  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  they  would  have  to  maintain  a  plant  to  take  care  of  that. 

SAMUEL  H.  RANCK  :  We  have  both  services,  the  automatic  and  the 
Bell.  The  household  rate  for  the  automatic, — and  I  believe  the  automatic 
exchange  in  Grand  Rapids  is  one  of  the  large  ones, — is  $24  a  year  for 
residence  service;  for  the  Bell  or  manual  service  it  is  $18.00  a  year;  so 
that  the  manual  service  is  cheaper  there.  I  have  both  services,  at  the 
office  and  at  the  house,  and  my  experience  is  that  the  automatic  service 
gets  out  of  order  a  greater  deal  oftener  than  the  manual  and  I  know  that 
the  automatic  people  are  moving  now  in  a  number  of  smaller  towns  of 
Michigan  to  get  increased  rates,  simply  because  of  the  greater  depreciation 
of  the  mechanism  that  goes  with  the  constant  use  of  the  automatic  service. 

MR.  A.  C.  PLEYDELL,  of  New  York:  May  I  add  to  the  gayety  of  the 
occasion  by  telling  a  story  I  heard  about  the  French  service?  They  in- 
stalled in  some  of  the  booths  the  hand  'phones  that  can  be  lifted  off  the 
shelf,  instead  of  the  old  wall  phones,  and  it  was  said  the  government 


464  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

had  to  take  them  out  because  the  excitable  Frenchmen  got  so  mad  when 
they  couldn't  get  service  that  they  used  these  things  to  pound  against 
the  wall.  They  had  to  go  back  to  the  old  kind,  against  the  wall,  where 
you  turn  a  crank  to  get  "  central." 

CHAIRMAN  PAINE:  We  will  now  adjourn  until  10.15  to-morrow  morning. 

WEDNESDAY  MORNING  SESSION. 

WEDNESDAY,  NOVEMBER  16,  1910,  10:30  A.  M. 

THE  HON.  WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE,  the  President-elect,  called  the 
meeting  to  order. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  Mr.  Bonaparte,  our  president,  found  it  necessary  to 
go  to  Baltimore  earlier  than  he  had  expected,  so  I  am  obliged  to  take  the 
chair  at  an  earlier  period  than  was  announced  in  the  program. 

The  subject  this  morning  is  School  Extension  and  a  large  number  of 
papers  have  been  prepared  upon  this  subject,  which  have  been  digested 
and  which  will  be  reported  to  the  League  by  Edward  J.  Ward  of  the 
University  Extension  Division  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

MR.  WARD  :  There  are  twenty- four  members  of  the  League's   School 
Extension    Committee,    each   of   whom   has   prepared    an    article   of    an 
average   length    of   two   thousand   words   upon    some 
School  Extension  phase  of  the  topic.     I  am  attempting  simply  to  point 
out  what  seemed  to  me  the  significant  things  in  those 
papers,  with  the  idea  that  later  on  the  reports  will  be  published  in  full. 
Several  of  the  papers  are  treatments  of  the  subject  from  specialists  who 
have  not  before  summed  up  the  subject  in  any  public  form. 
[For  Mr.  Ward's  digest  see  page  353.] 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE  :  I  would  like  to  call  the  attention  of  the  League 
to  the  resolution  which  was  introduced  yesterday  morning  and  which 
was  laid  over  through  the  modesty  which  Mr.  Bonaparte  disclaimed,  but 
still  acted  upon,  for  consideration  this  morning.  The  resolution  was  that 
"  a  committee  of  five  be  appointed  by  the  president  of  the  League  to  pre- 
pare and  submit  appropriate  resolutions  expressing  the  appreciation  of 
the  entire  membership  to  Hon.  Charles  J.  Bonaparte  for  his  long  and  ef- 
fective service  as  President  of  the  National  League." 

On  motion,  duly  seconded,  the  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted, 
and  the  Chair  appointed  as  the  committee  of  five  Messrs.  Mayo  Fesler, 
Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  Horace  E.  Deming,  Robert  Treat  Paine  and 
Clarence  L.  Harper. 

SECRETARY  WOODRUFF  :  It  occurs  to  me  that  it  would  be  a  very  appropriate 
courtesy,  alike  to  the  president  of  the  League  and  to  Mr.  Bonaparte,  if 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  465 

Mr.  Foulke  were  added  as  an  ex-oMcio  member  of  that  committee,  and  I 
therefore  move  that  Mr.  Foulke,  as  president,  be  added,  ex-ofKcio,  to  the 
committee  already  appointed. 
This  motion  was  unanimously  passed. 

PRES.  FOULKE:  There  is  a  gentleman  in  charge  of  the  work  of  the 
Russell  Sage  Foundation  in  New  York,  who  has  perhaps  a  better  knowl- 
edge than  almost  anyone  else  in  the  country  of  the  actual  use  of  school 
houses  for  the  purposes  indicated  in  the  late  paper,  and  I  therefore  call 
upon  Mr.  Clarence  A.  Perry,  of  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation,  to  discuss 
the  paper  and  to  tell  us  what  his  experience  is. 

Mr.  Perry's  paper  on  "The  Present  Status  of  School  Extension  in 
America,"  will  be  published,  with  the  other  papers  prepared  by  the  mem- 
bers of  the  League's  Committee,  in  a  separate  volume  to  be  devoted  ex- 
clusively to  the  subject. 

PRES.  FOULKE  :  There  is  one  thing,  we  have  got  to  face  in  considering  this 
question  of  the  use  of  school  houses  for  communal  and  political  purposes. 
That  is,  we  have  got  to  consider  whether  the  public  mind  may  not  be 
still  in  somewhat  of  a  prejudiced  condition  in  regard 
Censorship  of  to  liberality  of  discussion.  I  think  it  was  stated  in 
Discussion  the  paper  that  Buffalo  proposed  to  limit,  to  have  a 

sort  of  censorship,  upon  the  character  of  the  political 
discussions  which  should  take  place  in  the  school  buildings.  Now,  of 
course,  it  is  a  bad  thing  to  have  any  kind  of  censorship  upon  discussion, 
and  at  the  same  time  we  are  not  yet  in  that  perfect  condition,  here  in 
America,  where  we  can  listen  to  all  sorts  of  expressions  upon  all  sorts 
of  theories. 

For  instance,  we  must  face  this  proposition, — are  we  quite  prepared  to 
allow  the  school  buildings  to  be  used,  perhaps  regularly,  for  the  dis- 
semination of  anarchistic  views?  They  might  be  used  for  that  pur- 
pose under  the  freedom  which  this  system  would  seem  to  recognize. 
That  is  one  of  the  things  that  ought  to  be  considered. 

MR.  WARD:  Miss  Emma  Goldman  resides  almost  within  a  stone's  throw 
of  one  of  the  social  centers  in  Rochester.  Her  niece  was  an  assistant 
director  of  the  girls'  work  in  the  gymnasium,  during  the  evening,  and  a 
teacher  in  the  East  High  School  during  the  day.  Miss  Emma  Goldman 
told  me  that  if  there  were  the  freedom  which  the  school  center  stands 
for  there  would  be  no  reason,  absolutely  no  reason,  for  any  of  the  anarchy 
of  the  deed  in  the  program  of  the  anarchists.  It  is  because  of  the  re- 
straint, because  of  the  limitations,  that  the  insurgency  of  the  anarchist 
is  expressed  in  violence.  But  let  me  say  this,  that  in  that  neighbor- 
hood, in  her  vicinity,  and  I  quote  the  director  also,  in  his  experience, — 
in  that  social  center  there  has  never  been  a  defense  of  the  principles  of 
anarchy,  except  as  from  the  extreme  point  of  view  in  which  the  in- 


466  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

dividualist  may  be  taken  as  an  anarchist,  and  is  so  taken  by  the  extreme 
socialist,  and  such  theories  as  Emma  Goldman  stands  for  have  never  been 
defended. 

Why?  For  the  same  reason  that  religion  has  never  been  discussed, 
and  why  was  that?  In  the  first  neighborhood  civic  club  formed  to  meet 
in  the  first  school  building,  the  motion  was  made  that  religious  dis- 
cussions be  barred,  and  it  was  voted  down  unanimously,  on  the  idea  that 
to  bar  religious  discussion  would  make  that  the  only  interesting  thing 
that  the  people  would  want  to  talk  about.  [Laughter.]  Worse  than 
that,  to  bar  religious  discussion  would  be  to  accuse  the  members  of  this 
neighborhood  who  used  the  school  building  of  a  lack  of  common  sense 
and  self-control  and  good  taste,  in  the  discussion  of  the  topics  upon  which 
they  would  speak.  There  have  never  been  in  any  neighborhood  civic 
club  meetings  in  the  city  of  Rochester,  through  three  years,  expressions 
which  have  caused  difficulty.  The  only  time  that  anything  of  that  kind 
ever  occurred  was  not  in  a  neighborhood  free  civic  club  discussion.  It 
was  in  the  presentation,  in  a  formal  lecture,  by  a  speaker  on  the  plat- 
form, of  a  position  which  was  unfair  to  some  of  the  people  in  the  city; 
but  in  the  free  discussion  it  is  just  as  true  of  the  world,  that 

"As  weakness  with  freedom  grows  stronger 

Than  strength  with  a  chain, 
So  error  with  freedom  shall  come 

To  lament  of  its  stain 
And  freely  repenting  does  whiten 
Its  spirit  again," 

as  Sidney  Lanier  says.  We  may  depend  on  the  light  of  liberty  for  the 
restraint  which  comes  with  the  feeling  of  the  free  right.  [Applause.] 

BIRD  S.  COLER,  of  New  York:  There  is  a  meeting  in  the  next  room 
studying  the  finances  of  cities,  and  one  this  afternoon  to  discuss  graft. 
I  mention  that  to  bring  up  the  idea  of  the  objective  importance  of  this 

question.  People  do  not  realize  that  the  school  pro- 
Increase  of  position  is  the  largest  proposition  there  is  in  that  line. 
Budgets  Some  years  ago  I  tried  to  point  out  some  socialistic 

tendencies  which  the  schools  did  not  stop.  The  con- 
fiscation of  property  in  the  city  of  New  York  to-day,  under  the  very 
best  administration,  probably,  the  city  has  ever  had,  goes  on  unabated. 
There  has  been  no  reduction  of  the  budget,  and  they  have  come  to  an 
investigation  of  school  affairs.  They  are  going  to  find,  that  the  enormous 
growth  of  the  New  York  budget  is  due  entirely  to  the  socialistic  and 
fraternal  tendency. 

I  have  attended  a  great  many  educational  affairs  and  I  have  never 
yet  heard  any  idea  of  God  in  any  of  them,  until  Mr.  Ward  just 
mentioned  a  moment  ago  as  to  why  maybe  the  idea  of  religion  had  not 
been  brought  up  in  the  social  centers.  It  is  the  first  time  that  I  have 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  467 

heard  any  moral  responsibility  broached.  We  are  getting  entirely  too 
materialistic.  We  are  going  to  reform  everybody  by  materialism.  If  you 
are  going  to  take  the  founders  of  the  Republic,  I  think  it  was  Mr. 
Washington  who  said,  "  Beware  of  the  man  who  tries  to  inculcate  moral- 
ity without  religion;'  and  then,  further  on,  I  think,  if  I  remember  cor- 
rectly,— he  says,  "  Reason  and  experience  forbid  us  to  expect  there  will 
be  any  national  morality  where  religion  is  excluded." 

I  am  not  arguing  that  religion  should  be  put  into  the  schools,  but  if 
you  carry  out  Mr.  Ward's  idea,  and  put  everything  into  the  school  house, 
— the  distribution  of  goods,  the  exchange  of  commodities,  make  a  soup 
house  out  of  it,  then  we  will  have  the  ideal  socialism,  and  I  think  Miss 
Goldman  was  right  when  she  said  if  that  was  the  case  then  there  would 
be  no  desire  for  any  socialism  or  anarchism.  Our  tremedonus  increase  in 
taxation,  and  the  burden  of  it,  lies  in  the  tremendous  socialism  that  is 
going  on. 

MR.  HOWARD  B.  MOSIER:  I  did  not  come  here  prepared  to  say  anything; 
but  I  have  had  some  experience  in  connection  with  the  social  center  move- 
ment in  Rochester.  During  the  last  few  years  I  was  chairman  of  the 
Democratic  general  committee  of  the  county  and  saw 
Schools  or  Saloons  this  institution  both  from  the  political  standpoint  and 
for  Political  from  the  citizen's  standpoint.  I  am  very  heartily  in 

Meetings  favor  of  the  movement,  most  emphatically  so.  I  said 

at  one  of  the  meetings  some  years  ago  when  the  social 
center  movement  was  being  organized,  that  I  did  not  see  any  just  reason 
for  forcing  me  as  a  politician  to  carry  on  a  campaign  in  saloons  and 
rooms  adjoining  saloons,  where  no  audience  could  be  had,  generally  speak- 
ing, except  such  an  audience  as  would  congregate  in  such  a  place,  and 
where  I  was  used  as  an  advertising  feature  for  the  sale  of  beer. 
[Applause  and  laughter.]  And  I  have  never  seen  any  reason  to  change 
my  opinion  on  that  subject. 

I  have  been  through  a  good  many  political  campaigns,  some  of  them 
mild,  some  of  them  bitter,  some  of  them  on  a  high  scale,  and  some  of 
them  not  so  high,  and  in  every  instance  we  had  to  appeal  to  the  citizenship 
almost  exclusively  in  the  saloons  or  in  halls  connected  with  saloons;  and 
not  infrequently  I  have  had,  in  order  to  get  breathing  space,  to  speak 
on  tables  outside  of  the  saloon  while  the  beer  was  being  sold  inside.  I 
had  my  choice  of  doing  that  or  speaking  in  a  bar  room.  The  social 
centers  of  Rochester  have  not  as  yet  been  used  for  political  meetings. 
We  advocated  that  some  three  years  ago  and  the  school  board  practically 
said  that  they  would  grant  the  use  of  the  rooms  for  that  purpose  if 
direct  request  were  made.  It  never  has  been  made,  for  various  rea- 
sons. One  of  them  is,  that  I  felt  when  I  was  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee that  to  antagonize  deliberately  the  saloon  vote  by  keeping  away 
from  the  saloon  when  there  was  nothing  to  put  in  its  place,  might  b« 


468  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

an  injury  to  the  party  which  I  represented,  and  while  I  personally  would 
have  been  willing  to  take  such  a  course,  I  was  not  willing  to  make  my 
party  stand  for  my  fads.  What  I  mean  by  that  is  this,  the  saloon  vote 
is  so  made  up  that  it  can  be  concentrated  and  used  as  a  general  vote, 
and  if  you  go  to  the  school  house,  unless  the  thing  has  developed  some- 
what, unless  both  parties  will  participate  in  it,  you  haven't  anything  to 
offset  that  united  vote,  and  the  cry  is  made  right  off,  "  This  fellow  is  a 
prohibitionist;"  and  when  that  cry  is  made  in  politics  nobody  comes  out 
and  fights  for  the  prohibitionist,  but  the  saloon  element  gets  out  and  fights 
against  him  and  your  party  loses  hundreds  of  votes. 

Nevertheless,  the  proposition  is  right,  that  political  meetings  should  be 
held  in  such  places  as  to  enable  the  respectable  element  of  a  community 
to  take  part  in  them.  Many  of  those  who  go  to  the  saloon  meetings 
are  respectable,  of  course.  I  am  not  opposed  to  saloons.  I  am  opposed 
to  the  general  principle  that  forces  me  to  do  all  my  political  speaking 
in  saloons,  so  that  I  cannot  reach  any  audience  anywhere  else,  except 
with  the  greatest  difficulty,  such  as  arranging  a  tent  or  something  in 
that  nature.  There  are  no  other  halls,  generally  speaking,  in  any  city 
except  those  in  the  schools  and  the  churches.  The  schools  belong  to  the 
people,  they  are  paid  for  by  the  people  as  a  whole.  Why  should  not  they 
be  used  for  the  purposes  of  general  public  discussions  such  as  political 
campaigns  draw  forth.  The  result  of  using  them  would  be  that  the  cam- 
paigns would  be  carried  on  on  a  very  much  higher  plane.  You  would  get 
the  kind  of  audience,  generally  speaking,  in  the  various  school  buildings 
of  the  city  to  which  you  would  not  quite  dare  to  give  superficial  argu- 
ment, to  attempt  to  mislead.  You  would  know  that  in  that  audience 
would  be  some  intelligent  persons  of  the  opposite  party  who  would 
object  immediately  during  the  meeting  to  any  false  statements,  such  as  we 
have  now  right  along. 

Those  of  you  who  have  attended  political  meetings  know  that  the 
gathering  almost  invariably  in  small  political  meetings  in  the  wards  is 
made  up  of  your  own  followers  who  come  there  largely  for  the  purpose 
of  seeing  if  you  can  give  them  some  points  that  they  can  go  back  into 
the  saloon  and  get  up  an  argument  on.  They  are  not  interested  in  the 
arguments  and  you  can  tell  them  anything  you  want  to,  and  most  of  it 
goes.  [Laughter.]  A  school  center  opens  up  discussion  upon  all  sub- 
jects in  which  citizens  are  interested.  It  brings  together  men  and  wo- 
men of  different  situations  in  life  economically,  on  a  common  basis  for 
common  discussion  on  all  the  subjects  that  are  going. 

I  think  myself  that  it  is  the  purest  democracy,  or  at  least  that  it  tends 
towards  the  purest  democracy  of  any  institution,  perhaps,  than  has 
ever  come  into  our  country;  and  if  men  and  women  considering  these 
questions  will  consider  them  in  a  broad  sense,  put  aside  the  petty  super- 
ficialities of  their  thought  and  look  upon  these  institutions  from  the 
standpoint  of  their  potentiality  rather  than  from  the  standpoint  of  what 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  469 

has  been  done  in  two  years,  I  think  they  will  almost  invariably  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  social  center  scheme,  the  extension  of  the  school, 
is  one  of  the  greatest  things  that  has  ever  come  into  the  country.  It 
would  be  most  unfortunate  to  have  it  hampered  in  any  way.  We  all 
ought  to  encourage  it,  and  when  it  goes  off  on  a  wrong  tangent  bring  it 
back,  keep  our  eyes  on  it,  from  the  standpoint  that  it  is  real  democracy, 
the  one  thing  that  we  must  get  after  in  this  country.  [Applause.] 

JOHN  F.  MUELLER,  of  Buffalo:  This  question  of  the  use  of  the  public 
schools  for  public  discussions  and  political  speaking  in  particular,  I 
have  thought  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  to  be  one  of  the  great- 
est needs  in  our  civic  life.  Some  twenty-five  years  ago  or  more  I  was 
in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  and  there  conceived  the  idea  that  if  In- 
dependence Hall,  or  some  similar  structure,  were  put  in  every  hamlet 
of  this  land  it  would  result  in  higher  citizenship.  The  remarks  of  the 
last  speaker  impress  me  very  forcibly,  speaking  as  he  did  and  showing 
that  our  politics  is  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  saloons.  I  do  not  arise 
particularly  as  an  enemy  of  the  saloon,  but  I  do  not  think  that  our 
political  system  should  be  circumscribed  or  influenced  by  any  one  particu- 
lar line  of  business.  [Applause.] 

My  original  idea  was  not  so  much  that  this  movement  should  be  an 
educational  extension  movement  as  a  movement  connected  with  the 
election  law.  I  know  there  is  some  prejudice  in  this  city,  and  evidently 
in  other  cities.  There  are  two  phases  of  that  pre- 
An  Independent  judice;  first,  on  the  part  of  the  school  department,  and, 
Hall  second,  on  the  part  of  certain  people  against  going 

to  the  public  schools,  so  that  my  original  idea  was 
that  we  ought  to  have,  if  not  an  independent  hall,  some  liberty  hall, 
where  all  the  parties  not  only  could  but  would  be  obliged  to  meet,  and  a 
section  in  the  penal  code  making  it  a  misdemeanor  to  hold  meetings 
in  a  saloon  or  any  other  place. 

MR.  COLER:  May  I  have  just  a  moment  to  get  right  on  the  record?  I 
wish  it  thoroughly  understood  that  I  do  not  object  in  any  form  to 
using  public  school  buildings  for  discussion.  What  I  meant  was  to  use 

it  as  a  free  amusement.  Take  the  moving  picture 
Influence  of  show,  for  instance.  I  will  just  cite  one  instance. 

Amusements  During  the  Tweed  times  in  the  city  of  New  York 

and  prior  to  that,  the  city  government  was  led  to  give 
away  coal  and  food,  and  a  large  portion  of  the  city  actually  was  cor- 
rupted by  the  political  machines  giving  food.  It  became  so  bad  that  the 
constitution  of  the  state  was  changed  and  provided  that  the  govern- 
ment could  not  give  away  food  except  through  charitable  institutions. 
Take  the  history  of  Rome.  When  the  government  maintained  amuse- 
ments it  corrupted  the  entire  people,  and  the  government  failed.  If  you 


470  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

will  give  me  control  of  the  amusements  of  the  City  of  New  York  I  do 
not  care  for  patronage,  contracts  or  anything  else,  I  will  carry  it  with- 
out any  other  political  basis  whatever. 

MR.  WARD:  May  I  give  just  an  item  of  information  regarding  the 
method  by  which  in  England  the  political  use  of  the  school  is  obtained? 
I  spoke  of  the  law  which  will  probably  be  enacted  in  Wisconsin  giving 
the  right  to  the  people  in  any  community  to  the  political  use  of  their 
school  building.  In  England  they  have  got  at  it  from  the  other  way,  and 
they  get  there.  They  give  to  each  candidate  for  office  the  right  to  a 
certain  degree  of  the  free  and  gratuitous  use  of  a  certain  proportion  of 
the  time  of  the  public  buildings,  including  public  schools  and  other 
buildings,  and  that  right  is  exercised  because  it  is  a  means  of  saving 
campaign  expenses. 

MR.  PERRY  :  Reference  has  been  made  to  the  use  of  the  New  York 
school  buildings  for  purposes  of  pure  recreation.  I  should  like  to  relate 
one  instance  in  respect  to  that  work.  There  are,  as  you  know,  in  New 
York  City,  recreation  centers,  centers  for  boys  and  centers  for  girls. 
During  the  past  year  there  has  been  introduced  cautiously  the  feature  of 
social  dancing.  That  is,  the  girls  in  the  girls'  centers  have  been  allowed 
to  hold  weekly  parties  to  which  boys  who  have  been  recommended  by 
the  principals  of  the  boys'  centers  were  allowed  to  come.  One  of  these 
social  dances  was  held  St.  Patrick's  Day.  The  superintendent  of  the 
work  visited  that  center  during  the  progress  of  the  dance.  He  observed 
about  150  couples  on  the  floor  dancing  in  the  most  decorous  and  whole- 
some manner.  Across  the  way  was  a  vicious  dance  hall  which  was 
larger  and  easier  of  access  than  the  school  recreation  center,  and  on  that 
floor  there  were  only  about  30  couples  dancing.  This  evening  recreation 
work  in  New  York  City  costs  the  taxpayers  about  three  and  a  fraction 
cents  per  person  per  evening.  [Applause.] 

MR.  A.  J.  CONROY,  President  of  the  Business  Men's  Club,  of  Cincinnati: 
Our  schools  which  have  halls,  are  thrown  open  to  the  public  and  are  largely 
utilized  by  what  we  call  improvement  associations  to  discuss  subjects  which 
are  germane  to  the  interests  of  the  city  or  to  the  particular  localities.  I 
think  one  of  the  most  important  things  in  our  school  education  should 
be  the  teaching  of  civics.  The  majority  of  the  scholars  that  attend  our 
schools  do  not  go  beyond  the  grammar  or  the  intermediate  schools, 
and  they  come  out  of  these  schools  with  a  very  meagre  knowledge  of 
what  civic  pride  means  and  what  pertains  to  municipal  government.  The 
ordinary  individual  as  a  rule  does  not  commence  to  get  a  conception  of 
what  municipal  government  means  until  he  reaches  his  majority.  That 
ought  to  be  taught  in  the  early  stages.  In  some  of  our  schools  in 
Cincinnati  we  have  a  regular  ballot  on  election  days  and  they  vote  for 
a  blue  ticket  or  a  red  ticket,  and  they  are  taught  how  to  scratch  and 
things  of  that  kind,  which  is  a  very  important  feature. 


There  is  another  thing.  They  ought  to  be  taught  the  theory  and  ad- 
miration of  that  which  means  construction  instead  of  destruction. 
There  is  too  much  of  a  tendency  in  the  schools  to  admire  the  great  gen- 
eral or  the  great  admiral  instead  of  admiring  the  man 
Civic  Heroism  who  constructs  and  achieves  and  does  something  for 
and  Distinction  mankind.  An  Edison  or  a  man  who  has  achieved 
something  in  the  lines  that  he  has,  or  in  other  useful 
directions,  is  worthy  of  a  great  deal  more  consideration  than  a  man  who 
is  at  the  head  of  an  army  or  a  navy;  and  the  more  we  introduce  and 
the  more  we  carry  out  that  spirit,  and  teach  that  which  means  civic  right- 
eousness, which  means  civic  pride,  which  means  better  municipal  govern- 
ment, and  starting  in  at  the  fountain  head  in  that  way,  the  less  we  need 
to  be  afraid  of  the  future  and  the  less  of  these  difficulties  we  will  we 
have  to  contend  with. 

HENRY  P.  EMERSON,  Superintendent  Buffalo  School  Department:  I  had 
not  any  intention  of  speaking  on  this  question,  but  I  confess  that  I  had 
some  temptation  to  do  so  after  listening  to  Mr.  Ward's  strictures  on  what 
we  are  doing  in  Buffalo.  I  want  to  say  that  considering  all  the  circum- 
stances I  am  more  inclined  to  admire  his  moderation  than  to  criticise 
any  severity  of  his  statement.  We  have  not  made  very  much  progress 
in  Buffalo  along  the  lines  that  have  been  discussed  here  this  morning. 
There  are  a  great  many  things  that  have  to  be  attended  to  in  a  large  and 
growing  city  like  Buffalo,  and  we  have  done  a  great  many  things  we 
believe,  in  improving  the  school  system  of  the  city,  but  Buffalo  is  a 
conservative  place.  The  first  thing  you  need,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a 
meeting  place,  a  hall,  an  assembly  room.  Nearly  all  of  our  buildings 
have  been  lacking  in  this  particular.  Then,  as  I  have  already  intimated, 
there  seemed  to  be  a  few  earnest  people  here  who  were  eager  about  this 
matter,  but  there  has  always  been  strenuous  opposition,  and  I  presume 
that  the  Superintendent  of  Schools  has  been  much  more  conversant 
with  the  opposition  than  with  those  who  are  friendly 
Buffalo  Schools  to  the  movement.  I  am  one  of  the  few  officials  who 
have  been  accused  of  being  too  economical,  and  I  was 
very  much  interested  in  the  remarks  made  by  Mr.  Coler  here  that  we 
must  be  careful  about  the  enormously  increasing  expenditures  of  the 
public  schools  and  for  other  things.  I  believe  that  a  day  of  reckoning 
is  coming  when  people  will  no  longer  acquiesce  in  an  expenditure  simply 
on  the  ground  that  it  is  on  behalf  of  education  or  of  some  educational 
movement,  but  when  a  whole  question  is  going  to  be  scrutinized  and  it  is 
going  to  be  decided  whether  a  given  expenditure  is  wise  in  itself,  I 
believe  there  is  such  a  thing  as  extravagance  in  educational  matters. 

Mr.  Ward  must  admit  that  there  was  very  strenuous  if  not  bitter 
opposition  to  the  social  center  plan,  or  the  civic  club  plan,  in  Rochester, 
and  I  believe  that  Rochester  is  much  more  favorable,  the  makeup  of  the 


472  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

population  is  much  more  favorable,  to  the  success  of  such  a  scheme  than 
Buffalo  is;  so  I  thought  we  ought  to  go  slow  about  that,  and  I  declined 
to  place  in  the  budget,  which  the  superintendent  has  a  right  to,  in  the 
city  of  Buffalo,  a  large  sum,  what  I  considered  to  be  a  large  sum, 
for  the  carrying  out  of  this  plan.  We  are  building  three  district 
or  elementary  schools  at  the  present  time  which  are  to  contain 
swimming  pools.  I  have  thought  it  wise  to  wait  until  we  had  these 
facilities  for  doing  this  work  before  beginning  on  any  large  scale.  I 
have  got  to  meet  this  question  again  this  year  when  the  budget  is  made 
up  in  February,  and  I  am  willing,  if  we  can  decide  on  any  feasible  plan 
of  procedure  that  will  eliminate  what  I  consider  these  extreme  ideas  in 
regard  to  the  matter,  to  try  something  that  we  know  will  work,  we  know 
will  suceed,  and  then  gradually  work  on  to  something  that  is  more 
problematical. 

STILES  P.  JONES,  Minneapolis:  We  in  Minneapolis  have  started  a  cam- 
paign for  these  things  which  Mr.  Ward  has  elaborated,  and  we  are  going 
to  have  them,  or  a  large  measure  of  them,  and  many  of  them  promptly. 
That  is  not  so  interesting  as  the  inspiration  of  the  movement,  which 
comes  from  a  school  teacher,  a  heroic  woman  school  teacher  who  has 
just  been  elected  to  the  school  board,  the  second  woman  elected  to  the 
school  board  in  the  history  of  the  city,  and  elected  by  the  largest  ma- 
jority ever  known,  by  a  majority  seven  thousand  larger  than  the  high- 
est vote  for  any  man  candidate  running  on  the  ticket  with  her. 

Behind  all  that  is  an  interesting  story.  This  teacher  was  discharged 
two  years  ago  by  the  school  board  for, — well,  they  didn't  say  what,  we 
couldn't  get  them  to  say  what,  but  they  hinted  at  insubordination.  Be- 
hind that  is  an  interesting  story.  What  was  her  insubordination?  She 
led  a  movement  among  the  teachers  for  higher  salaries  some  three  or 
four  years  ago,  and  the  teachers  got  them.  Then  we  had  a  school  system 
up  there  with  a  factory  superintendent  at  the  head,  who  was  turning 
out  a  factory  product.  The  teachers  were  terrorized.  It  was  a  political 
institution.  There  was  graft  in  the  school  board. 
Minneapolis  This  woman  with  one  or  two  other  heroic  women 

School  Reform  went  to  work  all  by  themselves  two  years  ago,  raised 
seven  or  eight  thousand  dollars,  employed  detectives 
and  went  after  that  graft,  unbeknown  to  any  one.  Eventually  they 
came  to  a  point  where  they  had  to  have  more  money  and  they  called 
on  me  for  advice  and  assistance.  I  got  other  people  interested,  and  they 
finished  the  job.  One  of  the  members  of  the  board  was  indicted,  tried 
twice,  and  they  were  unable  to  convict  him  on  account  of  the  prejudice 
against  the  character  of  the  evidence,  which  came  through  professional 
detectives,  but  they  retired  him  to  private  life.  He  was  the  most 
notorious  of  them  all.  It  led  to  the  resignation  or  withdrawal  of  other 
members  of  the  board,  to  the  election  of  two  or  three  new  men  pledged 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


473 


to  higher  things,  and  some  excellent  results  came  of  it.  But  this  woman 
was  discharged  as  a  teacher  because  she  had  been  active  in  the  graft 
investigation  of  the  schools.  Now,  in  the  language  of  the  prize  ring, 
she  "  comes  back "  as  a  candidate  for  school  board  and  is  elected  by  the 
largest  majority  ever  known.  Here  is  the  funny  thing.  Since  the  elec- 
tion of  that  woman  by  that  extraordinary  majority  the  members  of  the 
board  are  all  falling  over  themselves  to  reform  along  these  lines.  One 
minister  who  has  not  stood  for  the  very  best  there  was,  was  the  first  to  get 
in  line.  [Laughter.]  He  is  going  to  stand  for  opening  up  the  schools 
for  real  political  discussion  among  candidates,  because  there  is  no  other 
forum  for  them  in  most  of  the  wards.  The  president  of  the  board  has 
been  right  most  of  the  time,  and  he  is  with  them.  There  are  seven  mem- 
bers. We  have  three  that  are  right  and  before  they  get  through  they 
will  have  most  all  of  them  and  this  program  of  Mr.  Ward's  will  be 
carried  out,  and  almost  wholly  through  the  inspiration  of  that  heroic 
school  teacher.  [Applause.] 
The  session  then  adjourned. 

CITY  FINANCES,  BUDGETS  AND  STATISTICS. 

HOTEL  IROQUOIS,  BUFFALO,  N.  Y., 
WEDNESDAY,  NOVEMBER  16,  1910,  10:  15  A.  M. 

DR.  L.  G.  POWERS,  of  the  Census  Bureau,  Washington,  in  the  Chair: 
Some  years  ago  I  was  announced  to  speak  before  the  Washington  Gov- 
ernmental Accountants'  Association  upon  statistical  accounting,  meaning 
by  that  the  application  of  statistics  to  the  accounts  of  cities  and  govern- 
ments and  their  use  as  a  measure  of  governmental  efficiency  and  economy 
of  administration.  The  phrase  at  that  time  was  more  or  less  new  and 
individually  I  was  not  known  to  every  member  present.  As  the  subject 
was  announced  I  heard  a  couple  of  the  gentlemen  just  in  front  of  me 
begin  to  talk  concerning  that  subject,  not  knowing  that  the  person 
to  speak  was  seated  just  behind  them.  One  of  the  gentlemen  turning 
to  the  other  said  —  with  a  dash  —  "What  is  a  statistical  accountant?" 
[Laughter.]  The  subject  of  statistics  and  accounts,  the  subject  of 

statistics  as  measures  of  governmental  efficiency  and 
Statistics  and  economy,  was  not  then  as  well  known  as  to-day. 
Accounts  Through  the  action  of  the  National  Municipal  League, 

which  is  emphasizing  the  value  of  statistics  of  every 
kind  in  their  relations  to  the  administration  of  cities  and  governments 
in  general,  the  public  is  being  educated  into  the  value  and  significance  of 
statistical  accounting,  the  application  of  statistics  to  every  branch  of 
governmental  administration  and  governmental  affairs.  Through  this  is 
to  come  the  added  efficiency  of  governments. 

The  application  of  statistics  is  now  taking  place  in  the  commercial 
world  as  well  as  in  the  governmental  world.  That  is  nothing  more  or 


474  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

less  than  cost  accounting,  which  is  becoming  a  more  and  more  important 
part  of  the  administration  of  every  large  private  business  and  it  is  be- 
cause private  business  is  becoming  more  efficient  in  its  management  that 
we  may  hope  for  governmental  business.  And,  in  turn,  I  want  to  say 
that  I  believe  that  the  greatest  stimulus  to  efficient  administration  of 
private  enterprises  must  be  found  in  governmental  affairs.  Govern- 
ments are  not  the  only  beneficiaries  of  this  movement  and  when  we  are 
here  met  to  discuss  how  to  improve  governmental  business  I  do  not 
want  to  meet  with  those  who  look  upon  governmental  affairs  as  the 
dregs  of  human  society;  I  come  as  one  of  those  who  believe  that  the 
commercial  world  has  as  much  to  learn  and  as  much  to  benefit  from  a 
study  of  governmental  affairs  as  governmental  officials  have  from 

studying  private  commercial  affairs,  and  it  is  because 
Public  and  private  affairs  and  governmental  affairs  are  so  inti- 

Plivate  Business    mately  associated.    And  the  advance  of  society  must 

be  not  one-sided  but  every-sided.  We  cannot  advance 
commercial  morality,  commercial  integrity,  the  efficiency  of  private  busi- 
ness, except  as  we  advance  that  of  governments.  And,  in  turn,  no  ad- 
vance in  governmental  affairs  will  be  successful  excepting  as  it  is  ac- 
companied with  thorough-going  advance  and  improvement  in  private 
commercial  business.  And  so  while  we  meet  here  nominally  in  dealing 
with  the  affairs  of  municipal  governments  we  are  in  reality,  if  we  ac- 
complish anything  here,  if  we  voice  a  spirit  for  higher  governmental  life, 
we  are  introducing  factors  that  mean  higher  and  better  commercial  life, 
better  and  truer  individual  life,  a  higher  and  better  type  of  citizenship 
in  every  respect.  Hence  the  discussion  this  morning,  dealing  primarily 
with  municipal  finances,  budgets  and  statistics,  has  to  do,  first  and  fore- 
most with  the  problems  connected  with  the  better  financial  administra- 
tion of  our  cities  but,  ultimately,  with  the  better  life  of  our  cities  and 
of  our  country  as  a  whole. 

The  first  paper  of  the  morning  dealing  with  this  complex  subject  of 
"  The  Correlation  of  Financial  and  Physical  Statistics  of  Cities,"  the  ap- 
plication of  statistics  to  cost  accounting  and  administration  of  our  cities 
will  be  by  Dr.  William  F.  Willoughby,  Assistant  Director  of  the  Census. 
[For  Dr.  Willoughby's  paper  see  page  203.] 

DR.  WILLOUGHBY,  continuing:  Of  course,  in  bringing  this  matter  before 
the  League  all  I  had  in  mind  was  simply  to  broach  this  subject  so  as  to 
see  whether  there  was  any  considerable  number  that  believed  that  the 
time  was  ripe  when  all  of  the  general  opinions  which  we  have  regarding 
practices  for  the  administration  of  municipal  affairs  could  be  organized 
in  some  concrete  way,  feeling  that  as  long  as  students  and  professors 
simply  talked  in  a  general  way  about  political  science  and  political  prin- 
ciples, that  what  they  were  after — the  actual  improvement  of  conditions — 
was  not  being  accomplished  very  rapidly. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  •  475 

It  was  only  as  the  League  took  the  matter  up  and  got  down  to  hard 
facts  and  a  concrete  formulation  of  documents  that  real  progress  began 
to  be  achieved.  There  are  a  large  number  of  arguments  and  almost 
every  city  is  practically  interested  in  this  question  of  economy  and 
efficiency  in  administration.  They  are  working  independently.  There 
are  undoubtedly  standards  of  unity  with  respect  to  cost  keeping  that 
ought  to  be  uniformly  employed.  There  are  undoubtedly  standard 
methods  of  purchase,  receipt  and  keeping  account  of  supplies  that,  of 
course,  with  certain  ordinary  modifications,  could  be  generally  adopted. 
It  does  seem  to  me  that  the  League,  representing  as  it  does  this  whole 
broad  country,  could  start  on  a  program  or  campaign  that  would  last  for 
years  and  would  get  some  concrete  formulation  of  the  best  practices 
and  principles  of  administration.  Then  we  could  really  begin  to  make 
progress  in  accomplishing  actual  results. 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  I  think  this  paper  is  one  that  brings  us  all  face  to 
face  with  the  next  step,  one  of  the  most  important  steps  that  this  League 
has  ever  taken. 

MR.  M.  N.  BAKER:  I  am  very  glad  indeed  that  this  subject  has  been 
brought  before  the  League  in  just  this  way.  Something  like  ten  years  ago 
when  preparations  were  being  made  for  the  census  of  1900,  a  request  was 
formulated  by  the  American  Society  of  Civil  Engineers  and  submitted  to 
the  then  census  authorities  asking  for  a  more  extensive  collection  of 
municipal  statistics  than  had  previously  been  entered  upon.  I  took  up 
the  matter  at  that  time,  through  the  columns  of  the  Engineering  News, 
and  tried  to  point  out  that  it  was  quite  useless  to  attempt  very  much  in 
the  way  of  the  collection  of  national  municipal  statistics  until  the  keeping 
of  them  was  in  better  shape,  so  far  as  cities  were  concerned.  I  attempted 
to  review  the  efforts  which  had  been  made  up  to  that 
National  Muni-  time  for  uniform  municipal  statistics.  I  urged  upon 
cipal  Statistics  various  bodies,  including  the  National  Municipal 
League,  the  appointment  of  committees  to  take  up 
uniform  municipal  accounts  and  statistics.  Some  six  or  eight  associations 
appointed  committees.  The  committee  of  the  League  was  the  only  one 
that  really  did  any  effective  work.  The  League  committee,  much  to  my 
disappointment,  ran  off — perhaps  that  isn't  a  fair  way  of  putting  it — 
but  went  almost  wholly  into  financial  statistics  and  left  the  physical  and 
operating  statistics  entirely  out  of  account.  I  have  always  maintained 
and  I  still  maintain — and  that,  as  you  see,  is  the  burden  of  the  argu- 
ment that  has  been  presented  to  you  this  morning — that  the  financial 
statistics  are  little  more  than  a  means  of  gratifying  curiosity  unless  they 
can  be  reduced  to  a  comparative  basis.  The  only  way  of  getting  them 
on  to  a  comparative  basis  is  to  reduce  them  to  units  of  cost. 

The  subject  of  street  cleaning  operations  was  mentioned.     It  is  true, 


476  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

as  has  been  said,  that  the  figures  are  of  very  little  value  unless  they  take 
many  things  into  account.  It  is  of  very  little  use  to  say  that  the  cost — 
even  a  broad  unit  cost  of  street  cleaning,  is  so  many  dollars  and  cents 
per  square  yard  in  one  city  as  compared  with  another.  This  amounts 
to  practically  nothing  unless  you  know  the  character  of  the  pavement, 
which  is  a  governing  factor.  It  costs  a  great  deal  more  to  clean  and  keep 
clean  in  a  satisfactory  manner  a  very  rough  paved  surface,  like  cobble- 
stones, say  or  even  granite  blocks,  than  it  does  to  keep  smooth  asphalt  or 
brick  clean  or  a  good  wooden  pavement.  Then  there  are  a  whole  variety 
of  other  conditions  that  have  to  be  taken  into  account,  including  labor 
conditions  and  hours  of  labor  in  the  different  cities  and  the  cost  of 
water  used  for  a  street  cleaning — so  many  that  you  become  almost  lost 
in  the  maze  of  difficulties  that  is  presented.  The  same  thing  runs  through 
practically  all  of  the  other  municipal  services.  So  that  it  is  very  essential 
that  we  find  out  what  the  cost  is,  and  not  merely  that  we  have  unit 
cost,  but  that  we  have  something  to  indicate  the  efficiency  of  the  service. 
That  is  what  we  want  to  get  at.  We  want  to  know  how  efficient  the 
work  is  that  is  being  done.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  one  city  pays  so 
many  cents  per  square  yard  for  cleaning  the  streets  or  so  many  dollars 
a  year  for  hydrants  for  fire  service,  but  we  want  to  know  how  efficient 
the  street  cleaning  is  and  how  efficient  the  fire  service  is. 

MR.  CHASE:  As  a  little  explanation  of  what  Mr.  Baker  has  said,  it 
would  seem  to  be  advisable  to  say  that  the  original  committee  of  the 
National  Municipal  League  and  the  League's  officers  themselves  fully  ap- 
preciated the  points  Mr.  Baker  has  made  but  that  the 
Definite  Finan-  whole  problem  was  so  complex  that  it  seemed  and  it 
cial  Statistics  in  fact  was,  wholly  impossible  for  the  League's  com- 
mittee to  undertake  it  at  once.  We  therefore  devoted 
our  attention  solely  to  the  financial  statistics  until  those  could  be 
gotten  into  some  classification  which  should  be  definite  and  sure  and 
accepted  throughout  the  country.  Now  that  that  has  been  done 
it  is  wise  without  doubt  to  take  up,  as  Dr.  Willoughby  suggests, 
the  correlative  branch  of  physical  statistics;  but  that  is  a  tremendously 
big  subject.  Plans  must  be  laid  on  a  very  extensive  scale,  money  must 
be  provided  in  ample  amount,  otherwise  such  an  investigation  would  be 
of  a  very  little  value.  We  should  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the 
financial  statistics  part  of  it  has  been  well  done  and  it  has  taken  about 
ten  years  to  do  it  and  while  at  the  beginning  of  that  time  it  seemed  hope- 
lessly impossible  to  arrive  at  the  standard  classifications  which  should 
be  accepted  throughout  the  country,  yet  here  they  are.  They  are  accepted, 
the  cities  are  applying  them  individually  and  by  states,  and  that  job 
seems  to  be  pretty  fairly  well  done;  now  the  next  step  is  bigger  but 
it  must  be  in  due  time  undertaken. 

MR.  BURNHAM  :  This  paper  of  Mr.  Willoughby's  is  exceedingly  valu- 


477 

able  and  suggestive.  It  contains  recommendations  which  it  seems  to  me 
should  be  specifically  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  executive  committee 
of  the  League.  It  is  a  tremendous  subject  and,  as  he  points  out,  would 
involve  special  financing;  but  for  the  sake  of  its  not  being  lost  sight 
of — the  recommendation  part,  I  mean — I  would  move  you,  sir,  that  this 
meeting  recommend  to  the  attention  of  the  executive  committee  the  sug- 
gestions made  in  Dr.  Willoughby's  paper. 
This  motion  duly  seconded  was  adopted. 

DR.  W.  H.  ALLEN:  I  would  like  to  ask  if  Dr.  Willoughby  has  figured 
out  what  it  would  cost  to  establish  such  a  central  bureau  as  he  has 
in  mind? 

DR.  WILLOUGHBY:  I  haven't  figured  it  out  except  I  know  that  if  prop- 
erly done  it  would  run  into  the  thousands  of  dollars. 

DR.  ALLEN  :  It  isn't  quite  clear  to  me  what  part  of  this  work  a  private 
agency  ought  to  do  and  what  part  of  it  the  municipal  government  could  do. 

DR.  WILLOUGHBY:  The  Bureau  of  the  Census  is  a  central  agency,  in  so 
far  as  publishing  results  is  concerned,  and  we  can  do  a  little  and  have 

done  something  in  the  way  of  trying  to  improve  the 
The  Census  original  material  which  we  have  to  handle.  Take,  for 

Bureau's  Work  example,  our  annual  reports  of  vital  statistics.  They 

would  be  of  a  fraction  of  the  value  that  they  are  now 
if  the  Census  Bureau  had  not  conducted  a  campaign  and  expended  con- 
siderable money  in  improving  the  registration  system  of  the  various 
states  and  cities;  they  have  even  drafted  model  laws  and  have  gotten 
states  to  adopt  the  laws,  because  believing  the  expenditure  they  did  make 
in  procuring  the  original  material  would  be  as  productive  of  results  as 
expenditures  in  trying  to  work  over  defective  material.  The  Census 
Bureau  has  done  much  in  the  field  of  municipal  finance.  Dr.  Powers 
here  is  responsible  for  the  handling  of  the  subject  of  accountancy,  ac- 
counting terminology,  and  trying  to  get  a  uniformity  of  practice — I  think 
in  the  same  way  the  census  bureau  could  handle,  the  subject  under  dis- 
cussion. It  could  probably  publish  the  results,  but,  of  course,  under  the 
law  it  could  not  make  any  expenditures  in  financing  any  such  committee 
as  has  been  proposed  here.  The  Census  Bureau  would  like  to  be  a  party 
to  and  is  interested  in  that  movement  to  do  all  that  it  can. 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  The  Census  seeks  not  to  become  a  dominant  force, 
not  to  set  forth  or  impose  any  of  the  ideas  of  its  officials  upon  the 
public,  but  to  become  a  clearing  house  for  the  best  ideas  relating  to  all 
these  subjects  in  the  country.  I  expressed  this  statement  one  time  before 
a  very  witty  gentleman  and  he  said  "  Then  the  Census  becomes  a  con- 
census, doesn't  it?"  I  said,  "Sir,  you  have  expressed  the  whole  pro- 
position." 


478  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

It  is  now  attempting  to  co-ordinate  and  express  the  best  ideas  of  the 
auditors  of  the  various  school  departments  of  our  large  cities,  and  of 
the  educational  organizations  of  the  country  and  of  all  others  interested 
in  efficient  school  statistics.  We  want  to  bring  school  statistics  and  the 
cost  of  administration  to  definite  units.  We  trust  that  we  may,  through 
this  concensus  of  opinion,  make  a  forward  step  in  this  branch  of  work 
during  the  next  year. 

MR.  R.  E.  SPEED,  City  Clerk,  Norfolk,  Va.:  We  find  that  the  men  sent 
by  the  Census  Bureau  are  efficient  and  do  their  work  well  when  we  put 

ourselves  fully  at  their  disposal ;  but  what  we  find  is 
Lack  of  a  lack  of  form  or  common  basis  of  comparison  after 

Uniformity  the  accounts  have  been  compiled,  as  to  street  cleaning 

and  such  matters.  A  number  of  cities  we  find,  under 
the  head  of  street  cleaning,  will  have  included  the  collection  and  in- 
cineration of  garbage;  in  other  cities  we  find  it  comes  under  the  head 
of  "  board  of  health  ".  If  a  common  form  will  be  provided  so  that  the 
cities,  in  making  up  their  cost  of  expenditures,  could  use  that  common 
form,  why,  then  a  large  difficulty  would  be  out  of  the  way. 

DR.  ALLEN  :  I  would  like  to  make  a  motion,  but  I  would  like  to  ex- 
plain it.  I  want  to  move  that  a  committee  of  five,  with  Dr.  Willoughby 
as  chairman,  be  requested  to  form  a  plan  for  the  educational  work  he  has 
in  mind,  to  call  for  an  expenditure  of  not  less  than  $100,000  a  year  and 
to  run  up  to  $250,000  a  year.  The  great  trouble  is  when  we  run  up 
against  things  of  this  kind  we  hate  to  face  the  real  cost  of  them 
and  are  all  the  time  asking  for  too  little.  If  we  start  off  a  pro- 
position of  this  kind  and  have  in  view  $10,000  a  rich  man  will  say 
"  I  will  give  $500  in  order  to  get  rid  of  you."  Dr.  Willoughby  is  not 
talking  about  tens  of  thousands,  he  is  talking  about 
Dr.  Willoughby's  five  hundred  thousand  a  year, — the  greatest  university 
Proposition  in  the  country.  If  this  thing  is  organized  right  it  will 

knock  the  spots  off  all  the  universities  in  the  country 
so  far  as  concerns  the  size  and  scope  of  the  work.  I  would  like  to  see 
what  the  result  of  ten  or  twelve  years  work  of  this  League  would  pro- 
duce in  this  way. 

I  would  suggest  that  a  committee  of  five  be  asked  to  formulate  our 
picture  as  to  what  the  business  man  and  the  philanthropist  in  the  country 
ought  to  be  doing  along  these  lines. 

DR.  WILLOUGHBY:  Part  of  the  remarks  I  endorse  very  heartily.  I  am 
glad  that  it  has  been  courageously  stated  here  that  this  is  a  proposition 
of  years,  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars.  It  really  involves  the 
whole  question  of  efficiency.  I  believe  if  anything  is  launched  it  ought 
to  be  on  a  big  scale  and  I  believe  if  it  is  launched  on  that  scale  it  will 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


479 


appeal  to  the  imagination  of  persons  of  wealth  and  that  the  money  will 
be  forthcoming.  The  only  point  in  which  I  would  differ  is  as  to  whether 
in  a  meeting  like  this,  primarily  for  the  reading  of  papers,  whether  the 
League  ought  to  be  committed  in  the  way  of  creating  a  committee  in 
that  precise  way.  Before  bringing  this  matter  before  you  I  consulted 
with  your  secretary  Mr.  Woodruff  as  to  whether  it  was  opportune  at  all 
to  bring  it  up.  He  said  it  was  and  he  was  very  glad  to  have  me  do  it 
and  then  I  discussed  with  him  as  to  whether,  if  anything  came  of  it, 
along  what  line  the  action  should  be,  and  I  think  his  opinion  was  that  it 
ought  to  be  referred,  as  we  have  already  referred  it,  to  the  Executive 
Committee,  because  it  is  something  that  pledges  the  entire  League  and 
not  this  one  section.  I  agree  that  it  ought  to  pass  through  the  Executive 
Committee.  The  only  amplification  of  the  resolution  we  have  already 
passed  would  be  to  put  it  up  stronger  to  the  Executive  Committee  that 
the  undertaking  is  on*  of  great  magnitude. 

MR.  BURNHAM  :  Would  Dr.  Allen  put  his  motion  in  this  form, — that 
the  Executive  Committee  be  recommended  to  appoint  a  committee  of  five, 
with  Dr.  Willoughby  as  chairman? 

DR.  ALLEN:  Yes. 

THE  CHAIRMAN:  With  this  motion  made  and  modified  as  suggested,  is 
there  any  further  discussion? 

MR.  PAINE:  I  rather  think  that  I  prefer  Dr.  Allen's  original  motion. 
It  is  perfectly  proper  for  us  to  ask  five  men  to  report  to  the  Executive 
Committee  the  scheme  which  we  have  heard  discussed.  For  us  to  ask 
the  Executive  Committee  to  appoint  a  committee  is  trying  to  force  their 
hands.  I  prefer  that  Dr.  Allen's  committee  should  be  appointed  by  us 
to  make  this  scheme  as  concrete  and  as  fine  in  its  development  as  pos- 
sible so  that  when  presented  to  the  Executive  Committee  they  will  have 
all  the  facts  before  them  for  action. 

MR.  CHASE:  I  think  the  Executive  Committee  will  follow  exactly  Mr. 
Paine's  suggestion.  They  doubtless  will  appoint  a  committee  which  will 
report  in  full  to  the  Executive  Committee  perhaps  at  its  meeting  in 
February. 

SECRETARY  WOODRUFF:  It  will  be  long  before  that.  The  thing  is  really 
in  process.  The  Executive  Committee  I  think  would  go  ahead  even  if 
this  body  should  say  it  did  not  deem  it  expedient;  that  is,  the  Executive 
Committee  favors  the  idea  and  is  moving  as  rapidly  as  it  can  in  the  mat- 
ter. It  is  really  a  matter  of  minor  detail  whether  you  ask  the  executive 
committee  to  do  it  or  say  that  this  is  a  thing  which  ought  to  be  done. 
I  think  you  will  find  that  long  before  February  the  thing  will  be  in  a 
shape  that  will  commend  itself  to  the  most  ardent  advocate's  idea. 


480  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

THE  CHAIRMAN:  You  have  heard  the  motion  as  amended.    If  there  is 
no  further  discussion  I  will  put  it. 
The  motion  was  adopted. 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  The  next   paper  on  the  program   is   "  Budgets   and 
Balance  Sheets  ",  by  Harvey  S.  Chase,  of  Boston. 
[For  Mr.  Chase's  paper  see  page  214.] 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  I  will  next  call  upon  Mr.  Charles  F.  Gettemy  for  his 
paper  upon  "  The  Standardizing  of  Municipal  Accounts  and  Statistics 
in  Massachusetts." 

MR.  GETTEMY  :  I  was  invited  to  read  a  paper  upon  the  work  of  the 
Massachusetts  State  Bureau  of  Statistics  in  endeavoring  to  straighten 
out  and  harmonize  and  standardize  municipal  accounts  and  statistics 
in  Massachusetts,  and  my  paper  will  be  simply  a  resume  of  what  we 
have  attempted  in  that  line,  without  undertaking  to  discuss  per  se  the 
finances  or  the  financial  condition  of  any  of  our  Massachusetts  municipali- 
ties. I  do  not  think  it  is  at  all  necessary  before  this  audience,  composed 
of  members  of  the  National  Municipal  League  which  originated  the 
movement  about  twelve  years  ago  for  the  standardizing  of  municipal 
accounts  and  statistics,  to  review  in  any  measure  at  this  time  what  has 
been  accomplished  in  the  several  states  along  that  line.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  under  the  leadership  of  the  League  and  the  stimulus  provided  by 
the  Census  Office  about  a  dozen  states  at  the  present  time  are  under- 
taking, through  some  central  state  bureau  or  office,  to  standardize  the 
municipal  accounts  of  their  various  cities  and  towns  and  also,  in  some 
states,  have  their  accountants  for  various  minor  civil  divisions;  notably 
in  Ohio  and  Indiana,  by  virtue  of  acts  passed  at  the  session  of  their 
legislature  a  year  ago  last  winter. 

[For  Mr.  Gettemy's  paper  see  page  230.] 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  May  I  at  this  moment,  in  comment  on  Mr.  Gettemy's 
statement  concerning  the  registration  of  municipal  bonds,  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  State  of  Illinois  for  quite  a  number  of  years  a 
large  class  of  municipal  bonds  have  been  registered  at  the  state  capitol 
and  of  bonds  so  registered  the  State  of  Illinois  becomes  a  guarantor  of  the 
collection  of  such  bonds. 

MR.  BURNHAM  :  Before  the  discussion  may  I  be  permitted  to  present 
the  tentative  report  of  the  League's  committee  on  City  Budgets  and 
Finances  ? 

The  committee  has  had  several  meetings,  the  last  one  at  Narragansett 
Pier.  The  report  is  a  tentative  one. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  481 

REPORT  ON  CITY  FINANCES  AND  BUDGETS. 

Without  doubt  the  first  question  to  which  the  League's  Committee  on 
City  Budgets  and  Finances  must  address  itself  is  that  of  adopting  a  de- 
finite nomenclature.  For  this  purpose  a  statement  of  facts,  setting  forth 
the  different  classes  of  official  acts  and  transactions  to  which  the  term 
"  budget "  is  at  present  applied,  will  be  useful. 

There  are  at  the  present  time,  as  Dr.  F.  A.  Cleveland  has  pointed  out, 
three   distinct  classes   of  official   acts  or  transactions 
Budget  Making      involved  in   the  process   of   budget   making  that   are 
practically  universal. 

1.  The  preparation  of  detailed  departmental  estimates   for  some  cen- 
tral administrative  officer  or  legislative  committee  based  on  statements 
of  past  departmental   experience   and   future   departmental   needs — here- 
inafter referred  to  as  a  budget  of  preliminary  estimates. 

2.  The  examination  and  analysis  of  the  budget  of  preliminary  estimates 
by    a    central    administrative    officer    or    legislative    committee    and    the 
formulation    of    a    summary    statement   or   statements   based    upon    such 
examination  and  analysis  for  the  consideration  of  an  appropriating  body 
— hereinafter  referred  to  as  a  proposed  budget. 

3.  An  ordinance  of  appropriation — hereinafter  referred  to  as  a  budget 
of  appropriations. 

The  methods  prescribed  and  the  responsibility  for  each  of  these  several 
classes  of  acts,  however,  may  vary  in  the  several  localities.  Each  of  the 
steps  above  described  as  practically  universal  may  be  divided,  as  for 
example : 

a.  The  budget  of  preliminary  estimates  may  be  made  up  of  separate 
preliminary  estimates  of  sub-departments,  bureaus  and  offices  contained 
within  the  general  department  making  the  submission. 

b.  The  proposed  budget  may  contain  both  the  estimates  of   revenues 
and  an  estimate  of  expenditures,  the  one  serving  as  a  basis  for  fixing  the 
tax  levy,  and  the  other  serving  as  a  form  for  the  enactment  of  a  budget 
of  appropriations ;  or,  again,  each  of  these  parts  may  be  separately  sub- 
mitted as  is  done  in  New  York,  the  budget  of  appropriations  being  passed 
not  later  than  the  thirty-first  of  October,  the  estimate  of  revenues  being 
made  not  later  than  May  first,  and  the  tax  levy  being  made  in  July. 

c.  The  budget  of  appropriations  may  be  an  ordinance  carrying  with  it 
authorizations  to  spend  and  establishing  a  definite  limit  to  the  incurring 
of  liabilities,  or  it  may  also  carry  with  it  certain   schedules  which   are 
enacted  as  conditions  to  the  budget  and  which  determine  the  manner  in 
which  the  authorizations  to  spend  and  limitations  of  liabilities  may  be 
audited  and  controlled. 

Having  in  mind  these  facts  Dr.  Cleveland  suggested  that  the  Na- 
tional Municipal  League's  Committee  should  either  coin  different  words 
or  phrases  which  might  be  used  to  designate  each  class  and  sub-class  of 
acts  or  transactions  described,  or,  if  it  may  be  thought  desirable,  to  use 


482  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

the  word  "  budget "  as  a  trunk  or  root  designation  and  to  coin  or  adopt 
certain    qualifying   adjectives    to   use   with    the   trunk 
Definitions  word  which  would  indicate  just  what  act  or  trans- 

action is  under  discussion  or  to  which  reference  is  being 
made.  If  the  second  alternative  be  thought  desirable  Dr.  Cleveland  sug- 
gests for  consideration  the  following: 

1.  Departmental  estimates  of  expenditures 

2.  Estimates  of  revenues 

3.  Proposed  budget  of  total  expenditure  to  be  provided  by  taxation 
and  other  revenues. 

4.  Tax  requirements. 

5.  Final  appropriations  from  taxes  and  other  revenues. 

Two  of  these  may  be  combined  such  as  "  budget  of  departmental  esti- 
mates "  to  include  I  and  2,  and  "  proposed  budget "  to  include  3  and  4. 
If  it  may  be  thought  desirable  to  narrow  the  term  "  budget "  to  one 
class  of  acts,  numbers  i  and  2  may  be  termed  "  departmental  estimates  " ; 
3  and  4  may  be  called  "  budget "  and  5  may  be  called  "  act  of  ap- 
propriation." 

Under  the  head  of  "Accounting  Terminology"  in  the  last  volume  of 
Statistics  of  Cities  published  by  the  Bureau  of  the  Census  of  February, 
1910,  the  report  says  at  page  33: 

Summary  of  budgetary  expenditures. — The  governments  of  most 
American  cities  prepare  more  or  less  elaborate  budgets  or  statements  of 
expenditures  to  be  met  from  a  current  revenue.  Some  of  these  cities 
include  all  their  costs  of  government  in  such  a  budget,  and  thus  meet 
from  revenues  not  only  their  current  operating  expenses  but  all  amounts 
required  for  outlays  and  those  to  be  transferred  to  sinking  funds  or  em- 
ployed for  other  specified  purposes.  Summaries  of  receipts  and  pay- 
ments arranged  as  stated  in  the  preceding  section  will  show  the  relation 
of  revenue  receipts  to  costs  of  government,  and  the  formal  payments 
for  the  liquidation  of  indebtedness.  These  summaries,  however,  will  not 
exhibit  the  relation  between  the  revenue  receipts,  or  revenue,  and  the 
payments  other  than  those  for  current  expenses  and  interest  made 
specially  payable  from  current  revenue  by  the  terms  of  the  appropriation 
or  revenue  acts.  A  complete  summary  of  revenue,  or  revenue  receipts, 
and  budgetary  expenditures  or  the  expenses  and  other  charges  made 
specifically  chargeable  to  current  revenue,  is  a  statement  of  considerable 
administrative  significance  and  assistance.  Such  statements  are  at  the 
present  time  very  frequently  presented  under  the  term  "  summary  of 
revenue  and  expenses,"  a  term  which  is  not  strictly  applicable  to  them, 
since  the  designation  "  expense "  is  not  a  proper  one  to  use  in  referring 
to  amounts  transferred  to  sinking  funds,  disbursed  for  meeting  the  costs 
of  outlays,  or  for  similar  purposes,  even  though  paid  from  revenue.  A 
better,  because  more  descriptive,  designation  for  referring  to  all  these 
amounts  made  payable  from  revenue  by  the  specific  terms  of  the  ap- 
propriations is  "  budgetary  expenditures." 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  483 

The  report  also  defines  and  describes  "  summaries  of  revenues  and  ex- 
accounts  " ;  "  general  governmental  summaries  ". 

Under  the  title  "  names  of  governmental  summaries "  the  report  has 
this  to  say: 

The  average  commercial  accountant  knows  of  but  two  business  sum- 
maries— the  one  which  he  calls  "balance  sheet"  and  the  one  called 
"  revenue  and  expense  "  or  "  profit  and  loss  "  account.  When  he  is  called 
in  as  an  expert  to  arrange  governmental  accounts,  he  applies  these  names 
with  but  little  discrimination  to  governmental  statements,  and  hence  we 
find  American  cities  referring  to  all  the  summaries  mentioned,  respect- 
ively, under  (i),  (2),  (3),  (7),  (8)  and  (9)  as  balance  sheets,  or  trial 
balances,  although  no  one  city  applies  the  designation  mentioned  to  more 
than  one  of  these  statements.  None  of  these  governmental  summaries 
above  referred  to,  and  none  of  the  others  which  have  been  described, 
is  a  true  balance  sheet  in  the  sense  in  which  that  term  is  employed  in 
private  business  for  gain.  They  are  all  governmental  statements,  and 
should  be  given  designations  which  are  as  little  as  possible  associated 
with  summaries  of  private  enterprises  for  gain,  in  the  same  way  that 
those  summaries  are  distinct  in  name  and  in  form  from  those  for  private 
fiduciary  accounting. 

Dr.  Cleveland  in  his  volume  entitled  "  Chapters  on  Municipal  Ad- 
ministration and  Accounting"  discusses  in  Chapter  VI  the  principles  of 
budget  making. 

The  above  quotations  and  references  are  given  with  the  hope  and 
expectation  that  all  the  members  of  the  Committee  will  very  carefully 
consider  the  several  questions  involved  and  give  to  the  chairman  the 
benefit  of  their  suggestions.  It  is  our  desire  to  prepare  and  present  to 
the  League  at  its  meeting  in  Buffalo  in  connection  with  the  discussion 
of  the  question  of  municipal  accounting  and  balance  sheet  a  statement 
which  may  be  utilized  as  a  basis  not  only  for  further  activities  on  the 
part  of  the  Committee,  but  as  a  basis  for  educational  work  in  the  several 
cities. 

The  Committee  at  its  meeting  at  Narragansett  Pier  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  the  preliminary  estimates  upon  which  the  appropriations  were 
subsequently  based,  as  well  as  the  appropriations 
Budgetary  themselves,  should  follow  the  general  schedules  ad- 

Schedules  vocated  originally  by  the  National  Municipal  League 

through  its  Committee  on  Uniform  Municipal  Ac- 
counting and  Reporting  and  subsequently  adopted  and  utilized  by  the 
Bureau  of  the  Census,  so  that  all  the  steps  in  the  financial  business  of 
the  city  should  be  upon  a  uniform  basis.  The  Committee  discussed  at 
length  the  extent  to  which  appropriations  should  be  detailed.  On  the 
one  hand  it  was  held  that  lump  appropriations  tended  to  increase  gov- 
ernmental and  bureau  responsibility  and  efficiency,  and  gave  to  com- 
petent heads  opportunity  to  work  out  far-reaching  and  progressive  plans. 


484  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

On  the  other  hand  it  was  urged  that  detailed  appropriations  were  an 
effective  check  upon  the  overpayment  of  the  politically  effective,  but 
departmentally  inefficient  employees,  and  that  the  elasticity  of  the  "  lump 
appropriation  method "  could  be  secured  by  transfers  from  one  item 
to  another  upon  the  affirmative  action  of  the  central  appropriating  body. 
It  was  generally  agreed  that  the  installation  of  "  balance  sheet,  double 
entry  "  methods  of  bookkeeping  logically  precedes  the  making  of  a  budget 
and  that  summary  reports  in  "  balance  sheet "  form  should  be  drawn 
off  monthly  by  the  comptroller  from  the  general  ledger  of  the  municipality 
and  published  regularly  for  the  information  of  the  city  government  and 
the  citizens.  iRespect  fully  submitted, 

GEORGE  BURNHAM,  JR., 
Chairman. 

MR.  PLEYDELL:  How  far  it  is  the  practice  to  borrow  money,  in 
anticipation  of  taxes,  on  short-term  bonds  is  a  vital  question.  There 
are  some  cities  that  practically  collect  their  money  in  advance;  they 
so  arrange  their  fiscal  year  that  they  collect  the  money  in  advance. 
There  are  other  cities — of  which  New  York  City  is  the  most  striking 
example — that  do  not  get  any  money  in  until  the  end  of  the  year.  In 
that  case  with  a  budget  of  $165,000,000  for  the 
New  York's  current  year,  the  city  begins  to  spend  on  the  first  of 

Practice  of  January.  With  the  exception  of  general  current 

fund  revenue,  such  as  lights  and  taxes,  things  of  that 
sort,  a  comparatively  few  millions,  the  rest  of  the  money  doesn't  begin 
to  come  in  until  October  and,  in  any  large  amount,  until  the  first  of 
November,  and  isn't  all  in  yet.  Out  of  that  $165,000,000,  without  knowing 
the  exact  figures  now,  I  judge  that  over  $100,000,000  has  been  borrowed 
in  anticipation,  perhaps  more,  because  we  continue  under  the  very  bad 
practice  of  carrying  the  temporary  bonds  over,  from  year  to  year.  They 
can  be  issued  for  two  years.  The  one-year  ones  are  extended  and  the 
two-year  ones  are  extended.  The  practice  of  taking  moneys  out  of  those 
temporary  bonds  and  juggling  with  the  account  led  to  carrying  un- 
collectible taxes  as  an  asset  in  the  city  of  New  York  until  a  total  amount 
of  $33,000,000  was  rolled  up.  Most  of  it  was  outstanding  in  bonds  sup- 
posed to  be  issued  against  the  current  year's  taxes  but  of  which  a  large 
part  was  for  prior  years'  uncollectible  taxes.  The  result  of  that  is  that 
taxpayers  during  the  last  30  years  have  escaped,  by  means  of  an  im- 
properly low  tax  rate,  their  share  of  the  current  expenditures  which  will 
now  have  to  be  met  by  the  present  owners  of  property  and  the  future 
owners  of  property  until  they  get  rid  of  that  $33,000,000. 

The  city  this  year  has  had  to  levy  in  the  budget  a  total  amount  of 
$10,000,000  to  cover  uncollectible  and  past  deficiencies  in  order  to  have 
some  money  to  get  along  with.  This  has  made  a  big  increase  in 
this  year's  tax  rate.  Not  all  of  that  $10,000,000  is  due  to  this  past 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  485 

$30,000,000  but  a  part  is.  Nevertheless,  it  shows  that  it  is  a  serious 
proposition  for  the  owner  of  property  to-day  to  have  to  face  that  amount 
and  yet  it  is  the  only  brave  thing  to  do,  to  admit  it  and  try  to  get  rid  of 
it  somehow. 

MR.  ANSLEY  WILCOX:  Our  charter  in  Buffalo  has  been  the  subject  of 
a  great  deal  of  criticism,  and  it  is  fairly  open  to  criticism,  although  under 

it  we  do  not  have  such  bad  city  government;  on  the 
Buffalo's  Practice  whole  we  have  very  fairly  good  city  government.  But 

in  one  respect,  judging  by  the  remarks  made  here, 
we  are  ahead  of  most  other  cities.  We  do  the  very  thing  which  it  has  just 
been  said  cannot  be  done, — that  is,  we  collect  our  taxes  in  advance,  in 
the  first  month  of  the  fiscal  year.  Our  fiscal  year  begins  on  the  first  of 
July.  The  work  begins  on  the  first  of  January,  when  the  new  officials 
take  office.  The  work  begins  in  January  and  they  have  six  months  to 
get  the  tax  rolls  ready.  The  departments  of  the  city  government  are 
all  required  to  present  their  estimates  to  the  comptroller  early  in  the 
year.  The  assessors  at  once  prepare  and  publish  the  assessment  rolls. 

MR.  CHASE  :  Taking  the  first  of  July  as  the  beginning  of  the  fiscal  year, 
about  how  soon  are  your  department  estimates  gotten  in? 

MR.  WILCOX:  I  think  by  the  middle  of  January  preceding.  This  work 
begins  on  the  first  of  January,  to  get  ready  for  something  which  cul- 
minates on  the  first  of  July,  at  the  opening  of  the  fiscal  year.  The  fiscal 
year  extends  from  July  to  July.  Mr.  Justice,  the  City  Comptroller,  is 
here  now,  so  that  he  can  correct  me  as  to  the  procedure  if  I  need  cor- 
recting. Within  the  first  two  or  three  weeks  of  January  all  the  depart- 
ments present  their  estimates  to  the  comptroller.  He  has  a  week  or  two 
to  tabulate  them  and  send  in  the  estimates  to  the  body  which  has  to 
pass  upon  the  budget,  which  unfortunately — and  here  is  one  of  our  very 
bad  things — is  the  common  council  at  large,  instead  of  a  small  board  of 
estimate.  The  estimates  get  to  the  body  that  has  to  pass  on  them, 
say,  on  the  first  of  February.  They  have  about  two  months,  I  think,  in 
all,  to  pass  on  them,  and  the  estimates  are  threshed  out  as  best  they 
can  be,  in  that  large  and  very  unfit  body,  and  then  go  to  the  mayor, 
and  the  budget  is  completed,  say,  by  the  end  of  March  or  in  April.  In 
the  meantime  the  assessors  are  going  along  with  their  revision  of  the 
assessment  rolls,  which  they  had  been  preparing  for  even  before  Janu- 
ary first,  because  our  board  of  assessors  is  a  continuous  body. 

MR.  CHASE:  There  is  one  question  there  we  need  to  ask,  in  order  to 
get  an  understanding.  Those  appropriations  are  made  by  the  budgetary 
body,  are  made  by  the  old  council  for  the  new  council,  evidently? 

MR.  WILCOX  :  Not  at  all.  A  new  council,  when  elected,  comes  in  on 
the  first  of  January. 


486  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

MR.  CHASE:  Then  why  doesn't  your  fiscal  year  begin  on  the  first  of 
January  ? 

MR.  WILCOX  :  It  begins  on  the  first  of  July. 

MR.  CHASE  :  Your  political  year  and  fiscal  year  are  separate  ? 

MR.  WILCOX  :  Absolutely.  The  political  year  begins  on  January  first 
and  the  fiscal  year  on  July  first,  and  so  the  mayor  and  the  common 
council  and  other  officials  all  go  out  of  office  in  the  middle  of  a  fiscal  year. 

The  result  is  that  the  board  of  assessors  get  their  assessment  roll  ready 
before  the  budget  is  completed,  along  in  April;  the  complete  figures  are 
handed  to  the  comptroller  and  are  spread  over  the  assessment  roll,  and 
the  taxes  are  ready  for  collection  on  the  first  of  July.  When  the  tax 
roll  is  completed  and  filed  in  the  comptroller's  office  the  taxes  become  a 
lien  and  are  payable  for  thirty  days  without  interest,  and  after  thirty 
days  they  draw  interest.  If  I  am  right,  they  draw  one  per  cent  at 
the  end  of  the  first  month,  and  a  half  of  one  per  cent  for  each  month 
after  that.  And  finally,  the  next  spring,  they  add  five  per  cent  to  the 
unpaid  taxes,  and  then  they  sell  the  property.  The  result  is  that  we 
collect  about  three-quarters  of  our  annual  tax  money  within  the  first 
month,  and  have  cash  in  hand  to  pay  our  bills  for  the  year,  except 
when  we  run  up  against  deficiencies  owing  to  insufficient  appropriation. 
That  certainly  works  in  a  city  of  this  size,  and  I  don't  see  why  it  ought 
not  to  work  everywhere. 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  It  works  in  Detroit.  You  will  find  that  same  system 
in  Detroit,  and  a  great  many  other  cities  in  this  country. 

MR.  PLEYDELL:  I  want  to  ask  Mr.  Wilcox  if  there  is  any  objection 
made  here  that  it  takes  money  out  of  the  hands  of  the  taxpayers  to  put 
into  the  banks,  etc.?  That  is  the  one  criticism  in  New  York. 

MR.  WILCOX  :  The  city  gets  interest  on  its  deposits.  Under  a  contract 
with  the  banks  it  gets  three  per  cent  on  its  lowest  monthly  balances. 

MR.   CHASE  :  That  same  point  comes  up  frequently  and  we  must  not 
forget  that  point  that  Mr.  Pleydell  now  emphasizes,  that  while  there  is 
a  corporation  in  the  municipality  and  it  gets  interest 
The  Question          on  its  money  in  the  bank,  the  actual  stockholders  in 
of  Interest  that  corporation  are  the  taxpayers  and  if  you  take  the 

money  away  from  the  taxpayers  they  lose  just  as  much 
interest  as  the  corporation  gains, — you  are  taking  money  out  of  one 
pocket  and  putting  it  into  another.  And  really,  when  you  come  to  figure 
that  down  you  will  find  that  there  is  no  marked  difference,  taking  the 
whole  community  of  taxpayers,  between  one  system  and  another.  You 
are  paying  interest  or  you  are  losing  interest,  just  as  much  in  one  case 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


487 


as  you  are  in  the  other,  only  in  one  case  the  taxpayer  is  losing  it  and 
in  the  other  the  corporation. 

THE  CHAIRMAN:  I  want  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  many  grow- 
ing cities  and  states  in  which  the  method  of  collecting  taxes  and  assess- 
ing is  substantially  as  related  in  Buffalo,  have  a  provision  for  a  semi- 
annual payment  of  taxes.  In  that  way  you  have  the  ability  to  have  the  city 
financed  on  its  own  money  continuously  without  any  large  amount  of 
money  being  drawn  from  the  taxpayers  and  held  in  banks. 

I  want  also  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  dilemma  to 
which  Mr.  Chase  has  called  attention  in  the  Eastern  cities,  many  of 
them,  especially  in  Massachusetts  and  New  England,  does  not  apply  to 
the  great  mass  of  the  Western  cities.  The  Western  cities,  especially 
Chicago,  all  Illinois  cities,  not  only  Illinois  but  the  great  mass  of  the 
Western  cities,  are  not  allowed  to  issue  revenue  bonds  to  the  extent  of 
the  tax  levy;  they  are  limited  by  constitutional  provisions  to  only  80%  of 
revenue  bonds.  That  is,  if  you  have  a  tax  levy  of  a  hundred  million 
dollars  you  cannot  issue  that  year,  or  any  other  year,  over  eighty  mil- 
lions of  dollars  of  revenue  bonds.  That  forces  the  city  at  least  to  have 
a  20%  margin  ahead,  and  to  that  extent  you  cannot,  by  the  method  of 
revenue  bonds  and  loans,  create  a  deficit.  You  may  create  a  deficit  in 
other  ways  but  not  in  that  particular  way. 

MR.  OLIVER  McCuNTOCK :  In  Pittsburgh  the  payments  for  the  year  are 
divided  into  two  instalments ;  I  think  the  first  one  is  due  the  first  of 
July  and  the  second  the  first  of  October.  If  the  taxpayer  pays  both  on 
the  first  period,  the  first  of  July,  he  gets  five  per  cent  off  the  second 

installment,  which  naturally  forces  the  payment  of  the 
Pittsburgh's  second  installment  at  the  same  time  as  the  first  one. 

Practice  The  city  gets  from  the  city  depositories  the  sum  of 

two  per  cent  on  deposits.  In  the  year  1907  the  six 
depositories  who  were  voted  to  have  the  city's  money  only  gave  two  per 
cent;  there  were  six  other  banks,  whose  aggregate  capital  exceeded 
those  which  got  the  money,  who  agreed  to  give  zY*  %  ;  yet  the  council 
voted  to  give  it  to  the  other  six  depositories.  The  condition  was  the 
sum  of  $125,000  paid  by  these  banks  to  the  councilmen,  which  was  the 
foundation  of  our  great  scandal  and  the  indictment  of  nearly  all  our 
councilmen  for  bribery,  one  of  the  chief  men  engaged  in  it,  declared 
that  there  were  six  honest  men  in  the  council,  which  consisted  of  about 
169  members, — that  is,  the  consolidated  councils  of  both  Pittsburgh  and 
Allegheny. 

MR.  R.  M.  HULL,  Cambridge:  In  Cambridge  we  have  what  Mr.  Wilcox 
mentions  in  Buffalo,  the  election  of  assessors,  and  we  are  very  much  dis- 
satisfied with  that  system.  We  have,  I  think,  all  of  the  evils  Mr.  Chase 
has  pointed  out.  In  addition  we  carry  uncollected  bills,  which  are  ab- 


488  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

solutely  uncollectible,  for  years,  and,  moreover,  we  get  around  the  law 
that  the  tax  limit  be  twelve  dollars  a  thousand,  by  excessive  valuations. 
There  is  hardly  a  piece  of  property  in  Cambridge,  except  property  that 
is  on  the  business  streets  and  in  certain  sections  of  the  town  which 
people  won't  sell  anyway,  that  can't  be  bought  for  about  eighty  per  cent 
of  its  value.  It  seems  to  me  the  whole  question  is  closely  allied  with 
municipal  accounting.  We  cannot  run  our  cities  properly  as  long  as  we 
are  evading  the  facts  in  that  manner.  We  want  to  get  our  assessors 

appointed  as  quickly  as  possible,  have  them  appointed 
Assessment  by  the  mayor,  after  a  civil  service  examination.  In 

Methods  that  way  we  feel  that  men  can  be  put  into  that  office 

who  will  give  all  their  time  to  that  work  and  assess 
property  equitably  and  be  on  the  job  all  the  time.  I  would  be  very  glad 
indeed  if  the  gentlemen  here  could  give  me  any  suggestions  as  to  whether 
that  is  a  reasonable  and  proper  method  for  the  appointment  or  the  placing 
in  office  of  assessors.  Our  present  method  is  perfect  nonsense.  We  elect 
a  man  to  assess  his  neighbors,  on  account  of  his  popularity ! 

MAYOR  BEATTIE:  I  come  from  the  city  of  London,  in  Canada;  I  am 
mayor  of  the  city.  I  have  listened  with  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  to  the 
discussion  which  has  taken  place  on  these  various  topics.  Of  course,  I 
am  not  very  fully  conversant  with  the  working  of  these  matters  in  the 
United  States.  I  want  to  say  a  word  as  to  what  Mr.  Hull  just  stated. 
The  system  we  follow  in  London  and  I  think  in  all  the  cities  in  Canada, 
is :  the  council  appoints  a  permanent  assessment  commissioner ;  he  holds 
office  during  good  behavior  or  until  for  some  reason  the  council  sees  fit 
to  remove  him.  The  appointment  of  the  assessors,  which  my  friend 
refers  to,  lies  in  the  hands  of  the  mayor  and  the  assessment  commissioner ; 
they  are  appointed  every  year  by  those  two  officials.  The  assessment  is 
made  in  the  year  before  the  levy  takes  place.  For  instance,  in  1910,  we 
assess  for  the  year  1911.  Our  fiscal  year  runs  from  the  first  of  January 
to  the  3ist  of  December.  Our  taxes  are  collected  in  three  installments. 
The  estimates  are  struck  usually  about  the  month  of  March.  The  coun- 
cil takes  office  on  the  ist  of  January.  Then  about  March,  after  going 
through  all  the  necessary  steps,  they  strike  the  rate.  Then  the  first  in- 
stallment of  the  tax  is  payable  during  the  month  of  July,  the  second 
during  the  month  of  September  and  the  last  on  or  before  the  3Oth  day 
of  November.  A  man  may  pay  all  three  installments  at  once.  If  he 
pays  them  during  the  month  of  July  he  receives  a  discount  of  three  per 
cent  off  the  second  installment  and  five  per  cent  off  the  third,  making  in 
all  a  round  discount  of  four  per  cent.  If  the  first  and  second  installments 
are  paid  and  he  pays  the  third  during  the  month  of  September,  then  he 
receives  a  third  discount  of  five  per  cent  off  the  last  one.  Then  there  is 
a  penalty,  a  separate  penalty  of  five  per  cent,  added  on  each  installment 
as  it  becomes  overdue. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  489 

MR.  HULL:  The  subject  of  assessment  was  one  of  the  chief  topics  dis- 
cussed at  the  Milwaukee  taxation  sessions.  In  the  volume  of  proceedings 
you  will  find  a  complete  summary  of  the  discussion.  The  weight  of 
opinion  was  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  appointment  of  assessors  and 
that  the  district  should  be  sufficiently  large  to  keep  the  assessor  at  work 
all  the  time, — give  them  good  pay,  get  intelligent  men,  hold  them  re- 
sponsible to  their  superiors.  In  fact  the  appointment  of  county  assessors 
in  the  country  districts  is  being  strongly  advocated  throughout  the  West, 
where  the  district  is  not  big  enough,  unless  you  take  in  a  whole  county, 
to  keep  a  man  continuously  at  work.  I  might  say  also  it  is  in  keeping 
with  Mr.  Quids'  short-ballot  proposition  of  concentrating  responsibility 
on  a  few  officials. 

On  motion,  adjourned. 

WEDNESDAY  AFTERNOON  SESSION. 

WEDNESDAY  AFTERNOON,  NOVEMBER  16,  3  p.  M. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  The  subject  is  that  of  "The  Unearned  Increment 
in  Cities,"  upon  which  Mr.  John  Martin  has  a  paper  for  us. 
[For  Mr.  Martin's  paper  see  page  346.] 

MR.  MARTIN  (continuing):  Let  me  interject  here  that  this  existence 
of  the  unearned  increment  is  a  vital  factor  in  the  determination  of  such 
questions  as  the  extension  of  school  facilities  and  the  use  of  school  build- 
ings discussed  here  this  morning.  It  is  assumed  as  a  rule  that  the  extra 
charges  for  extended  city  activities  must  come  out  of  the  taxpayers' 
pockets  and  that  it  is  unjust  to  take  out  of  those  pockets  the  amounts 
called  for.  The  reply  to  that  usually  is  that  in  reality  the  rent-payers 
pay  the  taxes.  That  is  not  to  my  mind  a  correct  reply,  and  it  is  not  a 
convincing  reply.  In  New  York  City  eight-thirteenths  of  the  total  as- 
sessed value  of  real  estate  is  the  value  of  the  land.  By  the  unanimous 
opinion  of  economic  authorities  taxes  on  land  cannot 
Incidence  Of  be  shifted  to  tenants.  There  is  a  division  of  opinion 

Taxation  among  economists  as  to  whether  the  taxes  on  improve- 

ments, which  amount  to  five-thirteenths  of  the  total 
real  estate  taxes  in  New  York  City,  can  be  so  shifted.  Authorities  like 
Lord  Goshen,  Marshall  Edgeworth,  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  taxes 
even  on  improvements  cannot  be  shifted  from  the  owner  of  the  property 
to  the  tenant  of  the  property.  In  my  own  opinion,  after  a  summer's 
study  of  the  subject,  in  growing  cities  where  land  values  are  increasing, 
no  part  of  the  taxes  on  real  estate  is  actually  shifted  to  the  tenant.  That 
is  to  say,  the  rent  which  a  tenant  has  to  pay  will  remain  the  same 
whether  the  tax  goes  up  or  down.  But  when  we  are  asked  for  a  justi- 
fication of  putting  higher  taxes  on  the  owner  of  land  and  improvements, 
if  we  can  point  to  the  fact  that  the  taxpayers,  the  property  owners,  in 


490  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

bulk,  are  actually  receiving  these  colossal  increments  of  value  which  are 
community-created,  and  if  the  taxes  are  increased  for  efficient  service, — 
there  is  no  argument  whatever  for  inefficiency  or  extravagance,  the  bad 
results  of  whch  fall  upon  the  bulk  of  the  population,  it  is  perfectly  fair 
to  pay  for  them  out  of  the  taxes  which  simply  reduce  the  amount  of 
this  princely  present  which  the  community  is  annually  paying  to  the 
real  estate  owners.  Of  course  under  our  system  of  taxation  where  the 
tax  is  not  at  all  proportioned  to  the  amount  of  the  increment  of  value ; 
but  still  in  the  aggregate  the  taxpayers  are  getting  this  increment,  the 
taxpayers  have  to  pay  for  these  increased  social  services,  and  there  is  no 
injustice  making  them  pay  for  those  services  out  of  this  princely  present. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  The  resolution  in  regard  to  Mr.  Bonaparte  is, 
I  believe,  now  ready  for  the  consideration  of  the  League.  Will  Mr. 
Fesler  be  kind  enough  to  read  the  resolution? 

MR.  FESLER:  The  committee  appointed  at  the  morning  session  has  pre- 
pared the  following  resolution : 

The  National  Municipal  League,  in  annual  session  convened  at  Buffalo, 
in  1910,  desires  to  place  on  record  its  sincere  appreciation  of  the  services 
of  Charles  J.  Bonaparte,  as  President  of  the  League. 

Elected  at  Detroit,  in  1903,  to  succeed  the  late  James  C.  Carter,  he  has 
steadfastly  maintained  the  high  ideals  in  public  life  and  municipal  service 
for  which  the  League  has  been  striving.  Uniformly  courteous,  conscien- 
tious and  painstaking,  he  has  at  all  times  and  in  all 
Retirement  of  places  advocated  and  practiced  the  principles  of  the 
Mr.  Bonaparte  public  good  as  against  private  interests.  He  has 
maintained  an  open-minded  attitude  on  all  questions 
discussed  in  the  meetings  of  the  League;  he  has  promoted  freedom  of 
discussion;  he  has  devoted  time  and  thought  to  the  consideration  of  the 
problems  presented  to  the  Executive  Officers  and  Executive  Board,  and 
has  been  in  a  real  sense  a  helpful  coadjutor  in  effectively  promoting  the 
objects  and  purposes  of  the  National  Municipal  League. 

Resolved,  That  we  express  to  Mr.  Bonaparte,  in  his  retirement  from  the 
Presidency  of  the  League,  our  high  appreciation  of  his  valuable  services, 
and  of  his  willingness  to  continue  these  services  as  a  member  of  the  Exe- 
cutive Board,  and  as  Chairman  of  the  Advisory  Committee; 

Resolved,  also,  that  these  Resolutions  be  made  a  part  of  the  records 
of  the  League,  and  a  copy  transmitted  to  him. 

WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE, 
HORACE  E.  DEMING, 
ROBERT  TREAT  PAINE, 
CLARENCE  L.  HARPER, 
CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF, 
MAYO  FESLER,  Chairman, 

Committee. 

On  motion  duly  seconded,  the  resolution  was  adopted  unanimously. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  We  will  now  have  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  a 
discussion  of  the  subject  of  "Corrupt  Practices  in  Municipalities"  by 


Mr.   William  Church   Osborn  of   New   York,   who  is  president  of   the 
Association  to  prevent  corrupt  practices  at  election.     [Applause.] 

MR.  OSBORN:  I  have  not  in  mind  to  consider  with  you  a  formal  and 
logical  presentation  of  the  subject  of  corrupt  practices  in  election  in 
connection  with  municipalities,  but  rather  to  give  you  in  a  somewhat  in- 
formal way  the  result  of  six  years'  experience  with  the  subject  by  one 
who  has  been  more  or  less  familiar  with  what  has  been  going  on  in  this 
state.  The  program  calls  for  the  discussion  of  corrupt  practices  in 
municipalities,  but  corrupt  practices,  by  which  is  intended  the  influencing 
of  votes  improperly,  as  by  duress  or  by  treating  or  by  direct  money  pur- 
chase, is  not  an  offense  for  which  municipalities  are  especially  cele- 
brated. It  is  an  offense  which  is  quite  as  much  the  property  of  the  rural 
districts  of  the  state,  quite  as  much  in  evidence  in  the  small  village 
communities,  as  it  is  in  the  larger  cities,  and,  in  fact,  unless  my  ob- 
servations are  incorrect,  it  is  more  prevalent  in  the  smaller  than  in  the 
larger  districts.  Corrupt  Practices,  as  some  of  you  may  not  know,  are 

very  limited  in  their  scope.  They  do  not  refer  to 
The  Purchase  offenses  against  the  registration  acts,  they  do  not  refer 
of  Votes  to  a  large  variety  of  crimes  against  the  election  law. 

"  Corrupt  practices  "  refers  practically  to  the  purchase 
of  votes,  and  while  there  are  many  practices  which  induce  a  voter  to 
vote  in  one  way  or  another,  which  are  improper  in  themselves,  when  you 
come  down  to  the  real  fact,  the  corrupt  practice  that  we  wish  to  get  at 
is  the  direct  purchase  of  a  vote  for  money  or  for  some  valuable  consider- 
ation. Six  years  ago  when  this  subject  first  came  prominently  into  mind, 
the  condition  of  things  in  the  state  and  in  the  country  at  large  was  hope- 
less. Nobody  was  paying  any  attention  to  corrupt  practices  at  all.  We 
had  had  a  number  of  barrel  campaigns,  we  had  had  "fat-frying"  in- 
cidents, the  "plum  tree"  had  been  shaken,  all  of  those  coinages  of  the 
vernacular  with  which  you  are  all  familiar  had  become  current  expres- 
sions,— "  blocks  of  five  "  was  another  of  the  same  kind, — all  those  things 
indicated  the  existence  of  a  great  evil  all  through  the  United  States,  and 
we  were  corrupt  and  contented.  I  recollect  very  well  that  when  one  of 
the  parties  inserted  a  corrupt  practice  plank  in  its  platform,  it  was  one 
of  the  negligible  factors  in  that  document.  Curiously  enough,  however, 
beginning  with  that  year  there  has  been  a  great  degree  of  popular  at- 
tention concentrated  on  this  subject,  and  without  desiring  to  touch  on 
any  unpleasant  matters,  I  will  name  two  or  three  of  the  things  which 
have  forced  it  to  the  popular  attention. 

To  go  back,  it  was  at  that  time  a  customary  thing,  and  a  custom  of  long 
standing,  for  the  managers  of  the  national  parties  and  of  the  state  parties 
to  make  the  salient  feature  of  their  campaign  the  collection  of  an  enor- 
mous war  chest.  The  funds  were  put  into  the  hands  of  a  central  body 
of  important  citizens,  and  a  few  days  before  election  gentlemen  from 


492  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

municipalities  and  from  rural  districts,  county  chairmen  and  others,  came 
down  to  town,  they  saw  a  mysterious  individual  in  a  back  room  and  they 
went  out  with  their  coat  pockets  bulging  with  bills  mostly  of  small  de- 
nominations but  very  large  in  amount.  I  know  what  I  am  talking  about. 
I  have  seen  these  fellows  come  into  the  room  of  a  chairman  and  have 
a  hand-to-hand  struggle  with  him  as  to  whether  they  were  going  to  get 
$2500  or  $3500.  Now,  that  was  a  common  thing,  it  was  carried  on  in  a 
most  unblushing  fashion,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  with 
those  who  have  followed  it  out  that  in  those  days  elections  were  bought 
wholesale,  not  only  in  this  state,  but  through  the  country — and  nobody 
cared.  But  there  were  some  very  sensational  occurrences  in  1904, 
charges  and  counter-charges,  which  called  public  attention  sharply  to  this 
matter.  Then  there  came  the  insurance  investigation,  where  it  appeared 
that  some  large  sums  had  been  paid  by  corporations  to  party  managers, — 
of  course,  for  corporate  purposes  and  not  for  public  purposes.  Then 
came  the  celebrated  letter  of  Mr.  Harriman  showing  that  just  before 
election  he  and  his  friends  had  contributed  some  $260,000,  and  as  he 
picturesquely  phrased  it,  it  had  a  "  decided  influence "  on  the  campaign. 
Those  things  sank  deep  into  the  popular  mind,  and  at  that  time  Mr. 
Perry  Belmont  printed  in  the  North  American  Review  a  very  interesting 
and  competent  article  on  the  subject  of  the  use  of  money  in  elections. 
About  the  same  time  the  "Association  to  Prevent  Corrupt  Practices  at 
Elections  "  was  formed  at  the  instance  of  a  number  of  people  in  the  state. 
That  Association  brought  about  some  statutory  changes.  It  put  a  real 
corrupt  practices  act  upon  the  statute  books  of  the  state,  and  it  has 
since  been  engaged  in  an  endeavor  to  enforce  the  act.  The  act  went 
through  the  usual  vicissitudes  of  such  acts,  and  is  still  going  through 
them,  and  I  will  not  weary  you  with  the  details  of  our  various  struggles 
and  difficulties. 

We  come  to  the  present  year  of  1910,  and  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  say 
that  a  great  change  is  apparent  in  six  years.  We  have  now  an  account- 
ing by  the  party  officers  at  large,  which  I  am  sure  is 
The  Principle  a  fairly  complete  accounting.  When  I  speak  of  the 
of  Accounting  officers  at  large  I  mean  the  officers  of  the  larger  poli- 
tical organizations.  The  state  committee  accounts  are 
apt  to  be  honest  and  complete  accounts,  I  am  well  satisfied.  I  have  had 
a  number  of  talks  with  the  people  who  have  prepared  those  accounts,  and  I 
am  sure  that  the  accounts  are  practically  correct.  We  have  an  aroused 
public  opinion.  The  people  are  no  longer  indifferent  to  the  purchase  of 
elections.  We  have  a  statute  which  is  fairly  operative  where  there  is  suffi- 
cient ginger  behind  it  to  bring  about  its  enforcement,  and  I  think  the  most 
important  thing  that  we  have  have,  Mr.  Chairman,  is  an  attitude  of  the 
politicians  in  the  state  toward  this  subject  far  different  from  that  which 
existed  six  years  ago.  It  was  picturesquely  phrased  by  a  very  active 
politician  who  spoke  to  a  friend  of  mine  about  our  Association  in  the 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


493 


following  terms :  He  said,  "  Charlie,  every  now  and  then  you  reformers 
turn  up  something  that  is  sensible,  and  you  have  turned  a  trick  on  us 
on  this  matter  of  the  purchase  of  votes.  We  used  to  think  that  we  had 
to  pay  money  over  to  these  strikers  that  hang  around  us  every  election. 
You  have  taught  us  that  we  can  win  an  election  and  turn  those  fellows 
down  too " ;  he  said,  "  You  haven't  got  very  much  that  is  good  in  you, 
but  you  have  got  that  one  thing  to  your  credit."  [Laughter.]  Now  Mr. 
Chairman,  that  has  brought  about  such  a  condition  of  things  that  the 
legislature  is  far  more  ready  than  it  was  in  earlier  days  to  regard  this 
subject  seriously.  I  do  not  wish,  however,  to  give  the  impression  that  the 
matter  has  come  to  such  a  perfect  condition  that  we  can  rest  satisfied 
with  our  accomplishment.  Anybody  who  has  had  an  active  part  in  the 
matter  will  realize,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  administration  of  the  law  on 
this  subject  is  perfectly  indifferent  and  passive.  I  fancy  that  there  are 
scarcely  two  district  attorneys  in  the  state  who  care  anything  about  the 
enforcement  of  the  laws  against  bribery  or  about  the  corrupt  practices 
acts.  The  judges  of  the  state  as  a  rule — not  invariably,  but  as  a  rule — 
approach  the  subject  from  the  standpoint  of  regarding  the  investigation 
as  a  criminal  procedure,  and  are  inclined  to  throw  around  a  committee  or 
a  person  who  is  under  investigation  all  of  the  safeguards  which  are 
usually  thrown  around  a  person  in  a  criminal  proceeding.  The  result 
is  that  when  we  endeavor  to  simply  ascertain  whether  the  published  ac- 
counts are  correct  accounts,  and  when  we  put  witnesses  on  the  stand 
whose  testimony  gives  them  immunity  from  any  further  prosecution,  we 
are  met  by  the  strictest  interpretation  of  the  statute  possible,  and  find 
ourselves  under  the  necessity  practically  of  proving  the  case  before  it 
is  fairly  brought  out.  Then,  in  addition  to  that,  we  find  that  there  is 
the  greatest  amount  of  indifference  and  ignorance  on  the  part  of  a  large 
number  of  people  to  the  existence  of  such  practices.  While  it  is  true 
that  the  purchase  of  votes  in  the  state  is  not  now  carried  on  in  a  state- 
wide scale,  it  exists  in  localities, — in  very  large  localities  to  a  very  large 
degree.  My  attention  was  forcibly  called  to  it  when  I  ran  for  the  office 
of  state  senator  some  years  ago  and  had  to  come  in  direct  personal 
contact  with  the  men  whose  business  it  was  to  get  out  the  vote.  They 
had  books  of  the  election  districts.  There  were  three 
The  "Indepen-  columns,  the  Republican,  the  Democratic  and  the  In- 
dent "  Vote  dependent.  "  Independent "  was  a  euphemistic  word. 
The  independent  column  contained  the  name  of  the 
floating  vote,  the  vote  which  looked  for  compensation  on  election  day, 
and  that  column  contained  from  25  to  50  per  cent  of  the  voters  all  through 
that  election  district.  There  are  cities  to-day,  not  many  of  them,  but  a 
few  cities,  where  the  vote  which  is  venal  is  30  per  cent  of  the  vote  of  the 
city.  This,  as  I  said,  is  not  specifically  a  municipal  offense. 

A  couple  of  years  ago  in  the  city  of  New  York  a  candidate  came  to 
our  Association  and  said  that  his  district  was  an  extremely  venal  dis- 


494  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

trict,  that  he  desired  our  Association  to  take  the  matter  up,  and  that  he 
was  well  satisfied  from  personal  inquiry  that  a  very  large  corruption  fund 
had  been  collected  and  was  about  to  be  distributed  among  the  voters  of 
that  congressional  district.  We  went  into  the  matter  with  the  utmost 
care.  At  his  own  suggestion  we  secured  the  services  of  three  or  four 
expert  detectives.  They  were  not  the  ordinary  brand  of  men  who 
stand  on  the  corner  and  notify  you  that  they  have  spent  a  day  and  ten 
dollars  in  doing  nothing,  but  they  were  really  intelligent  men.  They 
went  to  every  saloon  every  day,  they  went  to  every  social  club,  they 
joined  the  political  organizations  which  were  supposed  to  be  distributing 
these  funds.  After  election  they  went  around  again,  the  entire  round  of 
every  agency  and  person  through  whom  these  moneys  would  naturally 
be  distributed,  the  barkeepers  and  people  of  that  class,  and  their  re- 
port which  was  rendered  to  their  superior  officer,  selected  by  the  very 
gentleman  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  was  to  the  effect  that  there  had  been 
substantially  no  vote-buying  at  all  in  that  congressional  district.  Now 
that  I  give  you  as  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  in  the  large  cities,  and 
oftentimes  in  the  districts  which  are  supposed  to  be  the  home  of  the 
corrupt  population, — direct  purchase  of  votes  is  rare, — for  instance,  in 
this  case  it  was  Tammany, — and  the  idea  that  Tammany  gets  its  vote  by 
purchase,  which  is  I  think  a  popular  idea,  is  evidently  not  always  correct. 
The  Association  has  had  very  little  call  in  the  city  of  New  York  for 
action  against  corrupt  practices  by  the  greater  political  organizations. 
There  have  been  cases  where  some  district  afforded  instances  where 
purchases  had  been  made,  but  as  a  rule  corrupt  practices  do  not 
extend  to  the  greater  city.  They  do  exist  largely  in  the  country, 
and  there  it  has  come  under  the  fallacy  that  the  farmer  desires 
to  be  paid  for  his  time.  You  go  out  and  see  him  and  he  says,  "  Yes,  I 
will  come  in,  but  I  am  working  to-day,"  and  he  desires  two  dollars, 

and  that  is  the  beginning  of  the  end.  He  gets  in  the 
Rural  habit  of  coming  in,  and  sits  on  the  fence  all  day,  until 

Corruption*  the  close  of  the  voting,  with  the  managers  bidding 

alternately,  to  see  which  one  will  pay  him  the  high- 
est sum,  and  if  he  is  not  paid  he  goes  home  without  voting.  That  is 
just  a  plain  fact  I  am  stating;  that  is  not  fancy  at  all.  Such  conditions, 
then,  still  exist  to  a  very  large  extent,  and  the  question  is,  What  remedies 
can  be  applied?  Well,  in  this  state,  we  have  a  corrupt  practices  act. 
We  have  also  a  beautiful  criminal  statute  on  the  subject.  There  are 
corrupt  practices  acts  in  perhaps  15  or  20  of  the  states  in  the  Union. 
California  has  a  very  remarkable  statute,  prepared  with  the  greatest  of 
care.  There  are  statutes  in  many  of  the  Western  states  prepared  with 
the  greatest  care, — and  nothing  happens  under  them.  You  have  all  heard 
of  perhaps  fifty  prosecutions  this  year  for  false  registration.  How  many 
prosecutions  have  you  heard  of  for  the  purchases  of  votes?  There  may 

*  The  recent  disclosures  in  Ohio  are  typical. — EDITOR. 


495 

have  been  100  cases  of  false  registration  in  a  city,  and  there  will  be  10 
or  15  prosecutions.  There  may  have  been  5000  votes  bought,  and  has  a 
step  been  taken?  Not  one.  If  by  any  chance  a  voter  is  caught  red- 
handed,  the  grand  jury  does  not  indict,  and  the  petty  jury  won't  convict, 
the  district  attorney  won't  bring  the  matter  up.  There  is,  however,  a 
large  body  of  educated  public  sentiment  which  is  growing  all  the  time 
to  which  an  appeal  can  be  made.  There  is  in  nearly  every  district  a  body 
of  men,  or  some  individual,  ready  to  attack  vote-buying, — it  is  more  apt 
to  be  in  our  experience  an  individual,  a  man  of  one  idea,  and  that  idea 
has  been  to  put  a  stop  to  this  practice.  He  has  got  around  him  a 
group  of  people  who  have  joined  in  that  idea.  Once  you  get  a  group  of 
people  in  a  locality  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  inform  themselves  as 
to  what  is  actually  going  on,  and  then  take  advantage  of  the  statute 
which  already  exists  upon  our  statute  books,  you  find  that  the  beginning 
of  the  end  of  corrupt  practices  in  that  district  has  been  reached.  For 
the  statute  which  we  have  has  this  merit,  it  gives  to  the  people  of  a 
district,  to  any  five  citizens,  or  to  any  candidate  the  opportunity  to  bring 
a  proceeding  of  investigation  before  the  Supreme  Court.  They  allege 
that  there  is  a  discrepancy  in  the  account  filed  as  to  some  expenditure, 
alleged  or  known,  or  they  make  some  other  allegation  showing  that 
improper  practices  have  existed  in  the  election.  Thereupon  they  have 
the  right  to  issue  subpoenas,  to  bring  into  court  all  the  witnesses  who 
may  be  material,  to  place  them  upon  the  witness  stand,  to  grant 
them  immunity  and  to  drag  from  them  such  information  as  they  can 
obtain  upon  the  subject.  Now,  under  the  auspices  of  our  Association 
there  have  been  perhaps  a  dozen  such  proceedings  in  this  state  in  the  last 
few  years,  and  the  results  of  them  have  been  inconclusive,  in  the  sense 
that  we  have  not  succeeded  in  drawing  out  evidence  of  large  plans  for 
corrupt  practices.  No  one  has  been  indicted,  no  one  has  been  convicted, 
but  I  will  tell  you  what  has  been  done, — we  have  put  man  after 
man  on  the  witness  stand  and  have  made  him  perjure  himself, 
so  that  he  knew  that  he  was  perjuring  himself,  the  court  knew 
that  he  was  perjuring  himself  and  every  one  present  in  court  knew  it  too, 
and  the  result  is  the  very  result  that  we  desire  to  achieve,  namely,  that 
the  community  where  that  transaction  has  taken  place  has  got  a  new 
point  of  view  on  the  subject  of  buying  votes,  and  that,  Mr.  Chairman,  is 
the  first  objective  toward  which  those  who  are  interested  in  the  subject 
should  direct  themselves,  namely,  the  securing  in 
Building  up  a  community  of  such  an  attitude  toward  the 

Local  Sentiment    purchase  of  votes  that  it  will  no  longer  be  possible 
for    that    practice    to    be    pursued    on    the    enormous 
scale  and  with  the  connivance   and   assent  of  the  people  under  whose 
very  faces  and  hands  it  is  being  done.    The  building  up  of  a  local  senti- 
ment against  these  practices  is  the  first  objective  that  should  be  aimed  at. 
Now,  the  second  subject  is  legislation.    You  know  how  admirably  a 


496  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

country  boy  with  a  little  stick  and  a  hook  tied  on  the  end  of  a  string  can 
hook  out  trout  while  an  inexperienced  city  fisherman  with  his  magnificent 
tackle  fails  to  find  a  fish  in  the  same  stream.  Well,  it  a  good  deal  the 
same  way  with  statutes  of  this  character.  It  doesn't  make  so  much 
difference  what  kind  of  a  statute  you  have  if  you  have  the  experienced 
man  and  the  energy  behind  it  to  push  the  statute  to  its  logical  and  practical 
conclusions.  Nevertheless,  Mr.  Chairman,  any  statute  can  be  either  help- 
ful or  hurtful.  For  instance,  I  have  pointed  out  a  provision  which  is 
helpful  in  our  act,  namely  the  procedure  provision,  because  that  pro- 
vision enables  the  public  sentiment  of  the  community  to  become  oper- 
ative, it  enables  any  individual  who  is  acquainted  with  what  is  going  on 
to  place  his  finger  upon  the  sore  spot.  It  seems  to  me  that  barring 
minor  matters  in  connection  with  our  statute,  which  I  will  not  trouble 
you  with  discussing,  that  there  is  but  one  great  possibility,  one  great 
field  that  we  might  now  open.  It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  do,  but  it  is 
the  same  field  which  has  made  the  English  corrupt  practices  act  suc- 
cessful. The  only  body  of  opinion  that  we  can  get  to  enforce  the  act 
now,  is  that  which  comes  through  the  voluntary  efforts  of  gentlemen  like 
yourselves  who  take  a  patriotic  interest  in  the  country,  but  in  England 
the  principle  of  the  Corrupt  Practices  Act  places  a  premium  on  the 
enforcement  of  the  act.  It  unseats  the  successful  candidate  on  whose 
behalf  there  has  been  any  corrupt  practice.  The  result  is  that  in 
a  bitterly  contested  election  in  England,  the  parties  are  very,  very 
good,  and  they  watch  with  hawk-like  eyes  the  attitude  of  their 
antagonists,  and  as  soon  as  a  party  is  guilty  of  any  corrupt  prac- 
tices in  England,  the  opposition  party,  from  no  patriotic  motives,  but 
from  the  purest  selfish  reasons,  at  once  makes  an  attack,  and  if 
successful  in  proving  corrupt  practices,  the  candidate  against  whom 
they  are  proven,  or  against  whose  agent  they  are  proven,  is  ousted  from 

office  and  a  new  election  is  held.  Not  only  is  the 
The  English  person  found  guilty  ousted  from  office,  but  he  is  in- 

Fractice  eligible  to  hold  office  for  five  years  thereafter.  The 

result  of  that  is  that  it  brings  to  bear  upon  this  sub- 
ject a  tremendous  pressure.  There  is  somebody  who  is  anxious  to 
catch  somebody  else.  That  is  different  from  the  case  with  us,  because 
with  us,  when  anyone  has  been  guilty  of  such  practices,  he  is  pretty  con- 
fident that  his  opponent  has  been  guilty  of  the  same  practices,  and  after 
election  they  are  both  good  fellows  anyhow  and  that  is  the  end  of  it. 
Now,  if  in  the  development  of  statutory  legislation  upon  this  subject 
some  method  could  be  found  by  which  we  could  hang  up  so  golden,  al- 
luring and  enticing  a  prize  to  the  opposition  as  the  ability  to  forfeit  the 
election  which  has  just  been  held,  to  deprive  the  successful  and  vulner- 
able candidate  of  the  office  which  he  has  purchased,  to  render  him  in- 
eligible for  five  years  thereafter, — if,  I  say,  such  a  system  can  be  found, 
then  we  will  at  once  enlist  behind  the  corrupt  practices  acts,  not  the 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


497 


voluntary  efforts  of  yourself  and  myself,  but  the  professional,  keen,  un- 
ending efforts  of  men  who  are  in  that  sort  of  thing  for  business,  and, 
moreover,  whose  experience  enables  them  to  know  far  better  than  we, 
exactly  what  transpired  in  any  election. 

The  difficulty  of  applying  that  system  to  this  country  lies  in  the  fact 
that  whereas  in  England  they  have  but  one  candidate  upon  a  ticket,  we 
have  perhaps  15  or  20,  and  it  would  be  obviously  absurd  to  attempt  to 
apply  to  the  election  of  a  president  a  principle  which  may  affect  some 
election  district  here  in  Buffalo  or  some  rural  district  in  the  northern 
part  of  the  State.  Where  there  are  many  candidates  upon  a  ticket  it  is 
impossible  to  apply  that  principle  in  its  entirety.  I  have  the  impression, 
Mr.  Chairman,  that  it  will  work  itself  out  in  this  way,  that  the  vote  of 
election  districts,  perhaps  the  vote  of  towns,  perhaps  the  vote  of  an  as- 
sembly district  for  a  party,  will  be  thrown  out  where  a  candidate  or  his 
party  has  been  proven  guilty  of  corruption  of  this  character.  In  the  case 
of  a  close  election,  the  loss  of  the  party  vote  in  a  given  town  might  be 
just  sufficient  to  change  the  result  of  that  election  in  the  county.  It 
strikes  me  ethically  that  it  would  not  be  an  unfair  arrangement  for  the 
party  to  lose  in  its  assembly  canvass  the  vote  of  a  town  which  had  been 
secured  by  it  by  corrupt  means.  I  leave  that  thought  with  you,  Mr. 
Chairman,  as  a  practical  suggestion  in  this  matter  and  trust  that  if  any 
suggestions  along  these  lines  or  for  the  amendment  of  the  corrupt  prac- 
tices acts  in  this  state  should  occur  to  any  of  you  that  they  will  be  sent 
to  the  secretary  of  the  Association,  Mr.  George  E.  Griffin,  at  Albany. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE  :  We  are  next  to  listen  to  a  discussion  upon  "  The 
Grafter  at  Work  in  American  Cities,"  by  Mr.  Harold  J.  Rowland,  of 
New  York,  of  the  editorial  staff  of  The  Outlook. 

[For  Mr.  Rowland's  paper  see  page  190.] 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE  :  One  more  address  we  have  this  afternoon,  and  then 
the  two  subjects  will  be  thrown  open  for  discussion.  The  next  is,  "  How 
to  Overtake  the  Grafter  by  Municipal  Accounting,"  by  Dr.  William  H. 
Allen,  of  New  York,  director  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Municipal 
Research.  [Applause.] 

DR.  ALLEN  :  In  saying  that  he  finds  corrupt  practices  quite  as  common 
in  small  towns  and  rural  districts  as  in  large  cities,  Mr.  Osborn,  I  take 
it,  will  go  as  far  as  Mr.  Howland  and  admit  that  graft — business  graft 
and  corrupt  practices  in  general — are  quite  as  common  in  the  apartment 
house  as  in  party  politics.  I  should  like  to  go  just  a  step  further  and 
suggest  that  if  we  could  ever  get  the  truth  about  it,  there  is  almost  as 
much  graft  in  the  ordinary  private  charity  or  in  the  practical  adminis- 
tration of  a  big  church  as  there  is  in  a  fairly  well  administered  city. 

Now  if  that  is  true,  it  contains  a  very  important  lesson  for  us  if  we 
are  going  to  try  to  find  some  way  out,  because  it  means  that  we  must 


498  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

stop  moralizing  about  "  bad "  people,  stop  throwing  stones  at  politicians 
and  must  begin  to  look  for  the  cause  of  graft  that  lies  a  great  deal 
deeper  than  the  relation  of  politicians  to  public  corporations,  or  public 
corporations  to  the  municipal  government. 

Personally  I  believe  it  is  true  that  graft  in  its  essential  manifestations 
is  not  peculiar  to  politics  or  government.     If  we  had  time,  I  should  like 
to  cite  illustrations  from  private  charities  which  have 
Universality  paid  ten,  twenty  or  twenty-five  per  cent  in  excess  for 

of  Graft  supplies.     I  should  like  to  cite,  for  instance,  some  of 

the  letters  which  come  to  public  officials  requesting 
them  to  restore  superfluous  or  incompetent  employees  to  the  public 
payroll.  These  letters  do  not  come  from  corrupt  business  corporations, 
but  from  a  pastor  of  a  church  or  head  of  a  school  or  a  woman's  or- 
ganization. They  say,  "  Can  you  not  economize  somewhere  else  but  with 
my  friends?"  or  "Will  you  not  please  find  a  place  for  So-and-So  who 
used  to  be  head  of  our  private  charity  agency  and  who  is  now  somewhat 
broken  down  in  health,  and  if  you  could  possibly  find  an  easy  place  in  the 
city  service  for  him  we  should  be  ever  and  ever  so  grateful  to  you." 

It  is  improper  influence  from  virtuous  sources  that  men  trying  to  clean 
out  our  city  government  have  to  contend  against.  It  is  easy  to  meet  the 
Tammany  Halls  of  whatever  party.  They  shake  hands  with  you — say, 
"  Individually  those  fellows  are  all  right,  but  collectively  they  are  hell  "- 
but  they  look  you  in  the  face  and  play  an  open  game  of  opposition.  The 
man  who  does  not  play  the  open  game  and  the  man  who  is  hard  to  work 
against,  is  the  man  who  believes  in  efficiency  and  honesty  if  only  it  does 
not  affect  his  particular  relation  with  the  city  government. 

The  trouble  with  us  has  not  been  that  we  have  not  had  morals  enough. 
The  historians  of  the  future  are  going  to  say  that  the  American  people 
were  fairly  persistent  in  their  morality  from  1776  on.  I  believe  they  will 
challenge  all  these  orthodox  statements  about  the  moral  awakening  of 
the  people.  There  has  not  been  any  moral  awakening  of  the  people. 
They  have  always  resented  wrong  things  whenever  they  could  see  them. 
The  awakening  that  has  come  is  an  awakening  on  the 
The  Need  Of  the  part  of  a  few  leaders  who  are  talking  differently  to-day 
"Open  Eye"  from  the  way  they  talked  a  few  years  ago  and  who 

are  admitting  now  something  that  other  people  have 
proved,  whereas  ten  or  twenty  years  ago  they  were  making  claims  which 
opponents  were  not  quite  able  to  disprove  conclusively.  In  other  words, 
what  we  need  is  an  open  public  eye  and  not  an  aroused  public  conscience. 

If  this  is  true,  the  question  is  how  are  we  going  to  keep  the  public  eye 
constantly  open?  The  corruptionist  does  not  put  a  placard  on  his  back, 
walk  about  Broadway  and  say,  "  I  am  a  grafter."  If  I  had  time  to  change 
this  title  I  should  have  asked  leave  to  subtract  from  it  the  expression 
"  overtake  the  grafter,"  because  the  grafter  is  not  an  animal  to  be  over- 
taken but  to  be  uncovered. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


499 


Few  men  graft  while  others  are  looking.  Municipal  reform  and  muni- 
cipal accounting  have  been  less  successful  than  they  should  be  in  the 
future,  because  the  public  has  assumed  that  there  was  some  way  by 
which  the  grafter,  after  being  discovered,  could  keep  just  so  far  ahead 
of  those  who  were  trying  to  overtake  him. 

Graft  presumes  the  ability  to  conceal.  The  greatest  of  all  concealers 
is  inefficiency;  less  graft  can  be  found  when  graft  is  sought  than  when  in- 
efficiency is  sought.  The  greatest  known  enemy  of  government  inefficiency 
and  of  conditions  that  favor  graft,  is  municipal  research,  including  that 
particular  phase  of  research  and  record  known  as  municipal  accounting. 
Ability  to  conceal  the  presence  of  graft  presumes  that  grafters  have 
accomplices ;  sometimes  the  grafters  are  on  the  outside  of  government, 
and  the  accomplices  on  the  inside;  sometimes  grafters  are  on  the  inside, 
and  the  accomplices  on  the  outside  of  city  government ;  at  all  times, 
where  any  considerable  amount  of  graft  exists,  the  chief  culprit,  the 
steadiest,  most  trustworthy  accomplice  is  the  victim  of  graft,  namely,  the 
general  public. 

As  Dr.  Frederick  A.  Cleveland  has  shown  in  his  admirable  discussion 
of  the  genus  grafter,  little  headway  is  made  in  trying  to  overtake  graft 
by  discussing  its  morals.  There  is  many  a  perfectly  moral  parasite  on 
public  pay-rolls  that  is  no  less  a  grafter  because  pro- 
The  Genus  tected  in  his  incompetence  by  a  false  interpretation 

Grafter  of  civil  service ;  no  headway  is  made  until  the  public 

turns  its  attention  from  the  grafter  to  the  victim. 
In  fact,  as  Dr.  Cleveland  says :  "  Looking  upon  the  grafter  as  a  grafter 
we  can  have  for  him  nothing  but  the  highest  praise.  Biologically  he  has 
justified  his  right  to  survive,  for  he  has  not  only  adapted  himself  to  his 
environment  but  he  has,  in  many  instances,  changed  his  environment  in 
such  a  way  as  to  make  it  contribute  to  his  own  personal  welfare." 
When  the  public  stops  playing  accomplice  to  grafters  within  and  with- 
out government  positions,  grafting,  whether  by  overcharging  or  under- 
working, will  become  progressively  more  difficult  and  more  rare  because 
less  certain  of  protection  and  more  certain  of  detection. 

Among  the  means  as  yet  discovered  to  keep  the  general  public  from 
being  an  accomplice  in  graft,  the  most  effective  is  adequate  municipal 
accounting  which  tells  the  truth  about  what  officials,  contractors  and 
employees  do  when  they  do  it. 

We  must  reproduce  the  effect  of  this  audience  before  which  no  cor- 
rupt politicians  or  business  men  would  think  of  acting  corruptly  or  in  an 
unseemly  way.  The  audience  must  go  with  every  man  who  does  public 
business;  when  he  buys,  when  he  sells,  when  he  records  work  on  the 
payroll,  and  the  business  world  has  made  that  possible  through  what  is 
termed  on  the  program  as  municipal  accounting. 

That  municipal  accounting  suggests  books  and  columns  of  figures  and 
peripetetic  adders,  subtracters  and  classifiers  is  an  accident  that  should 


500  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

not  interfere  with  the  terms  being  properly  understood  and  properly  used 
by  those  wishing  to  eliminate  graft.  The  sole  aim  in  life  of  accounting  is 
to  furnish  evidence  as  to  the  who,  evidence  as  to  the  what,  evidence  as  to 
the  when  of  orders,  contracts,  certificates  of  delivery,  inspections,  audits, 
stores  on  hand,  labor  rendered,  time  loafed,  shortages  concealed,  over- 
charges, etc. 

We  of  municipal  research  have  everywhere  maintained  that  the  open 
public  eye  rather  than  the  aroused  public  conscience  is  essential  to  the 
elimination  of  graft,  and  that  the  reason  for  past  failures  is  more  often 
defective  evidence  than  defect  of  law  or  lack  of  conscience.  Perjury  or 
forgery  on  the  part  of  a  public  officer  belongs  to  the  genus  crime,  species 
perjury  or  forgery,  if  you  can  prove  it.  Falsifying  a  payroll  certificate, 
if  you  can  only  prove  it,  is  not  dissimilar  to  forging  a  bank  check.  Call- 
ing rotten  apples  "A  i "  is  no  longer  an  innocent  act  when  once  the  false 
certificate  can  be  traced  directly  to  the  false  certifier.  Holding  ten  hear- 
ings to  do  the  work  of  one  is  no  longer  innocent  when  the  commissioner's 
own  records  of  condemnation  proceedings  show  that 
The  Need  for  the  nine  extra  meetings  were  known  to  be  unneces- 
Evidence  sary.  As  Mr.  William  J.  Curtis  has  shown  in  an 

opinion  upon  the  taxpayer's  right  to  prosecute  officials 
not  only  for  stealing-graft  but  for  waste-graft,  our  present  need  is  not  for 
more  virtue,  or  more  conscience,  or  more  law,  but  for  more  evidence. 

Those  of  you  who  are  interested  in  protecting  your  taxpayers  against 
waste-graft  and  incompetence  on  the  part  of  public  officials,  will  do  well 
to  possess  yourselves  of  Mr.  Curtis'  report.  The  Bureau  of  Municipal 
Research,1  will  be  glad  to  send  you  one  or  more  copies  at  five  cents  each. 
If  your  own  city  charter  does  not  make  it  true,  it  should  be  made  true 
that  any  public  official  or  employee  is  a  trustee  and  as  such  liable  for  the 
efficient  use  of  the  materials  and  the  opportunities  which  you  put  before 
him  as  trustee.  If  he  pays  $942,  for  articles  worth  $300,  as  was  recently 
proved  of  the  department  of  public  works  in  Buffalo,  you  can  collect 
$642  from  him.  If  he  pays  $166  for  something  worth  $50,  as  did  this 
Buffalo  department,  you  can  collect  the  difference — $116 — from  him. 

The  whole  spawn  of  crimes  that  accompany  political  corruption  depends 
upon  someone's  ability  to  give  away  something  that  does  not  belong  to 
him,  which  in  turn  depends  upon  public  ignorance  of  what  is  being  done 
with  its  money  and  its  power.  To  supplant  ignorance  with  knowledge 
it  is  necessary  to  take  away  that  ability  to  fulfill  pledges  to  those  who 
want  to  prey  upon  the  public.  In  politics,  as  in  churches  and  universities, 
it  is  not  easy  to  graft  or  to  do  injustice,  or  to  be  comfortably  incom- 
petent when  the  actor  is  on  a  platform  in  full  view  of  an  audience  intent 
upon  what  he  is  doing.  Take  away  the  probability  of  concealment  and 
few  men  have  the  courage  to  defraud  their  fellow  or  violate  law. 

1  261  Broadway,  New  York. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


501 


Adequate  substitutes  for  certainty  or  probability  of  concealment  are  either 
probability  or  certainty  of  detection. 

No  municipal  accounting  is  adequate  which  does  not  account  for  work 
done  as  well  as  for  money  spent,  and  for  work  done  in  terms  of  money 
spent  for  that  work. 

The  most  important  of  all  benefits  from  adequate  municipal  accounting 
is  that  it  puts  a  premium  on  efficiency  which,  in  turn,  is  a  soil  unfavorable 
to  the  growth  of  graft.  Official  incompetence  breeds  violation  of  law 
just  as  a  devitalized  lung  breeds  tuberculosis.  It 
Premium  OH  needs  but  one  colony  of  tubercular  bacilli  to  give 

Efficiency  galloping  consumption  to  many  an  overworked  man ; 

so  it  needs  but  one  small  initial  centre  of  crime  to 
honeycomb  an  official  machinery  with  graft  when  public  business  is  in- 
efficiently done.  If  unwarranted  profits  are  not  paid  for  supplies,  the 
contractor  will  not  be  tempted  or  compelled  to  give  the  bribe  that 
demoralizes  every  one  who  touches  it.  If  churches  and  charities  get 
only  what  they  are  entitled  to  and  what  they  can  compel  by  law,  they 
will  not  be  afraid  to  oppose  criminality  and  law  evasion  or  violation  and 
thus  give  character  and  support  to  political  plunderers.  If  a  working  day 
on  a  public  job  is  eight  hours  with  reward  commensurate  with  work 
done,  political  positions  will  not  be  attractive  enough  to  justify  crime,  cor- 
ruption and  risk  of  disgrace  and  imprisonment.  If  the  man  who  re- 
ceives goods  cannot  guarantee  that  his  certificate  will  pass  them  when  the 
inspector  comes  around,  his  friendship  is  not  worth  enough  to  tempt  or 
compel  presents  and  bribes. 

Just  in  proportion  as  competence  supersedes  incompetence  will  it  be 
difficult  for  the  relatively  few  who  start  out  to  graft,  either  for  the  sake 
of  making  money  or  avoiding  work,  to  misrepresent  their  true  character 
as  enemies  of  public  welfare;  and  just  in  proportion  as  municipal  ac- 
counting tells  first  the  official  and  later  the  public  where  dollars  do  not 
bring  a  dollar's  worth  of  service  or  supplies,  will  employee  and  official 
strive  to  make  a  record  which  will  create  a  good  impression  when 
read  by  the  public. 

Efficient  honest  men  will  find  greater  cause,  because  less  blind,  to  pre- 
vent graft,  than  dishonest  incompetent  men  can  find  to  commit  and 
protect  graft. 

When  detection  is  made  more  certain  than  protection  the  scepter  of 
dominion  in  public  business  passes  from  the  man  who  profits  from  graft 
to  his  fitter-to-survive  fellow  who  survives  by  advertising  the  first  signs 
of  graft. 

Municipal  research  and  municipal  accounting  will  do  for  the  millions 
upon  millions  of  official  acts  and  for  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  public 
employees  in  city,  state  and  nation  what  the  electric  light  does  for  the 
criminally  minded  and  for  dark  or  winding  or  isolated  streets.  It  has 
been  decades  since  any  one  questioned  the  efficiency  of  electric  lights, 


502  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

electric  fire  and  police  alarms,  standing  police  force,  cash  register  re- 
ceipts, stubs  and  carbon  copies  in  promoting  the  en- 
Municipal  forcement  of  law.  It  has  been  decades  since  the  world 

Research  an  accepted  the  idea  that  the  efficacy  of  these  various 

Electric  Light  agencies  is  due  not  merely  to  the  fact  that  they  help 
fix  responsibility  but  rather  to  the  fact  that  be- 
cause they  help  fix  the  time,  the  place,  the  act,  the  actors  and  accessories, 
they  make  violation  of  law  progressively  unattractive  and  unsafe. 

Municipal  research  and  municipal  accounting  merely  ask  that  society 
shall  organize  its  public  business  so  that  every  public  official  shall  carry 
his  own  light  and  shall  leave  behind  him  his  own  carbon  copy,  notched 
receipt  stub  or  other  evidence  of  work  done,  so  that  these  shall  be  as  a 
cash  register  to  his  acts  and  an  electric  alarm  to  the  controlling  and 
correcting  centres  whenever  and  wherever  there  is  something  wrong 
with  public  business. 

One  illustration  from  New  York  is  furnished  by  a  valve  wheel  that 
has  now  become  famous  in  our  city  for  it  proved  to  the  general  public 
a  vague  abstract  thing  impossible  of  understanding.  Comptroller  Pren- 
dergast  was  notified  by  the  inspectors  of  his  audit  division  that  the  de- 
partment of  corrections  had  approved  for  payment  a  bill  of  $18  for 
twelve  four-inch  valve  wheels,  which  could  be  bought  at  retail  for 
seventy-two  cents.  He  stated  the  facts  to  the  mayor.  Mayor  Gaynor 
wrote  to  the  commissioner  of  corrections  somewhat  as  follows :  "  It  is 
very  unlikely  that  these  are  the  only  fish  that  have  slipped  through  your 
business  net  or  that  in  an  enterprise  as  large  as  yours  valve  wheels  are 
the  only  things  for  which  you  are  preparing  to  pay  several  hundred 
per  cent  more  than  you  ought  to  pay.  Dismiss  at  once  the  two  men  re- 
sponsible for  receiving  and  O.-K.-ing  the  bill.  Then  please  start  a 
thorough-going  inquiry  into  the  whole  department  from  top  to  bottom 
and  treat  in  the  same  way  everybody  who  is  found  to  be  indifferent  or 
inefficient." 

He  then  set  to  work  the  commissioners  of  account  to  make  this 
thorough  inquiry.  We  call  them  in  New  York  "  the  mayor's  eye."  They 
deserve  to  be  called  quite  as  well  "  the  people's  eye "  for  any  man  who 
addresses  a  postal  card  to  Mayor  Gaynor  to-day  say- 
The  Mayor's  ing  he  was  treated  discourteously  by  a  city  employee 

Eye  or  that  a  street  is  costing  twice  as  much  as  it  should, 

or  that  supplies  are  not  being  delivered  according  to 
specifications,  sets  to  work  "  the  mayor's  eye  " — an  office  of  one  hundred 
odd  men  who  make  a  thorough-going  inquiry  not  merely  into  that  single 
complaint,  but  into  conditions  of  operation  in  all  parts  of  that  particular 
department.  Thus  a  verbal  complaint  or  a  postal  card  or  a  charge  in 
some  detail  from  individual  citizens  or  groups  of  citizens  has  lead  to 
the  saving  of  half  a  million  here  or  ten  thousand  there  or  the  reduction 
of  a  payroll  somewhere  else  by  fifty  or  one  hundred  men. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  503 

Moreover  when  the  department  in  question  prepared  its  budget  estimate 
for  19 1 1  it  asked  for  less  than  for  the  year  1910,  although  it  had  hereto- 
fore requested  each  year  increases  of  several  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  some  of  those  who  are  here  from  Buffalo  to 
know  that  the  title  of  "the  mayor's  eye"  and  "the  people's  eye"  of  New 
York  happens  to  be  held  at  the  present  moment  by  a  Buffalo  boy,  Raymond 
B.  Fosdick,  trained  in  the  Buffalo  schools,  whose  father  is  a  revered 
head  of  one  of  that  city's  high  schools. 

Those  of  you  who  are  interested  in  the  attempts  of  New  York  City 
to  get  at  graft,  not  by  looking  for  graft  but  by  looking  for  inefficiency, 
will  do  well  to  write  to  Comptroller  William  A.  Prendergast,  280  Broad- 
way for  "  Manual  of  Accounting  and  Business  Procedure  for  the  City 
of  New  York,"  which  gives  a  detailed  description  of  the  accounting  system 
that  the  city  of  New  York  is  now  installing.  While  it  would  need  modi- 
fication in  your  city,  it  at  least  furnishes  a  basis  for  discussion  in  the  at- 
tempts of  another  city  to  work  out  an  accounting  system. 

Thanks  to  ex-Comptroller  Herman  A.  Metz,  who  began  the  new  ac- 
counting and  budget  reforms  in  New  York  City,  a  fund  has  been  estab- 
lished of  $10,000  a  year  for  three  years  to  help  New  York  City  and  other 
American  cities  discover  and  eradicate  the  graft  of  inefficiency,  the  graft 
of  the  man  who  is  on  the  payroll  and  doesn't  do  a  day's  work,  the  graft 
of  a  noble-spirited  and  obstinate  man  who  thinks  that  because  he  is 
virtuous  it  is  all  right  for  him  to  block  progress  for  five  or  twenty-five 
years,  or  the  graft  of  a  body  of  men  on  a  hospital  or  school  board  who 
limit  the  future  efficiency  of  school  children  or  patients  by  their  own  lack 
of  competence  and  study.  How  the  Metz  fund  for  promoting  efficient 
municipal  accounting  and  reporting  is  proceeding,  may  be  learned  by  writ- 
ing to  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research. 

One  other  step  taken  in  New  York  may  be  of  help  elsewhere.  Many 
of  you  have  read  of  the  budget  exhibit  given  by  the  city  officials  and 
visited  by  between  800,000  and  1,000,000  people.  The  taxpayers  have  ap- 
proved of  including  in  the  city  budget  $25,000  to  organize  a  second  budget 
exhibit  next  year  and  $110,000  for  inquiries  into  (a)  public  school  effi- 
ciency; (b)  hospital-health-charities  services  and  program;  (c)  payroll 
«fficiency.  While  these  appropriations  may  be  cut  out  by  the  board  of 
aldermen,  it  is  probable  that  the  board  of  estimate  and  apportionment 
will  in  some  way  find  the  means  of  making  good  on  their  own  pledges 
to  the  public. 

Just  one  thing  more  as  to  the  possibility  of  efficient  government  through- 
out the  country.  There  has  been  a  great  overturning  in  national  and  state 
politics,  which  suggests  an  exceptional  opportunity  for  municipal  leaders. 
The  man  who  understands  the  psychology  of  graft  and  its  mechanics 
will  take  ten  chances  with  the  man  who  is  going  to  put  the  grafter  in 
jail  to  one  with  the  man  who  is  looking  after  the  graft  of  inefficiency. 
If  our  new  state  administrations  do  not  make  good  on  the  efficiency 


504  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

side  and  fail  to  divert  their  attention  from  the  routine  of  public  admin- 
istration to  the  heroics  and  high  statesmanship  of  politics,  the  new  lead- 
ers will  be  thoroughly  discredited  and  it  will  not  take  until  1912  to  dis- 
illusion the  followers.  There  is  a  tremendous  opportunity  for  those  of 
us  who  are  not  interested  in  the  party  or  personal  side  of  politics.  We 
have  the  chance  of  a  lifetime  between  now  and  1912  to  "  play  both  ends 
to  the  middle."  The  Democrats  are  anxious,  the  Republicans  are  fright- 
ened, and  if  we  keep  down  the  middle  of  the  road  and  play  them  over 
against  each  other  saying  to  each,  "  You  want  to  look  out  or  they  will 
beat  you,"  we  can  accomplish  wonders  in  the  next  two  years,  if  we  will 
work  with  a  straight,  insistent,  constructive  program. 

ANSLEY  WILCOX,  of  Buffalo:  One  special  matter  was  mentioned  by  Mr. 
Osborn  which  I  think  it  is  worth  while  to  present  more  fully  because  we 
here  in  Buffalo  have  had  a  chance  to  try  it  out  in  our  experience,  and 
we  can  show  you  something  before  you  go  away  which  some  of  you 
have  never  seen  before, — that  is  the  voting  machine. 

Buffalo,  I  think,  is  the  largest  community  which  has  adopted  and  for 
many  years  has  used  the  voting  machine.  Up  to  this  year  it  has  been 
correct  to  say  that  our  voting  machines  have  played 
The  Voting  us  absolutely  true,  and  we  have  had  no  reason  to  be 

Machine  dissatisfied  with  them.  We  have  had  our  election 

returns,  after  the  close  of  the  polls,  more  quickly  than 
any  other  large  community,  and  there  has  been  less  trouble  in  the  way 
of  questions  about  the  accuracy  of  the  results  than  one  would  believe 
possible.  Certainly,  as  compared  with  the  condition  of  things  which 
existed  before,  when  we  voted  on  paper  ballots,  either  in  the  early  stage 
when  parties  and  individuals  got  up  their  own  ballots,  or  in  the  later 
stage  when  the  state  furnished  official  ballots,  our  voting  machines  have 
been  an  enormous  improvement  in  celerity,  in  certainty  of  work  and  in 
the  removal  of  a  large  class  of  questions  which  are  involved  in  the 
general  subject  of  corrupt  practices  at  elections.  Tampering  with  boards 
of  elections,  holding  back  of  returns,  falsifying  returns  to  meet  the  neces- 
sities, or  supposed  necessities,  of  candidates  for  majorities  larger  or 
smaller  as  the  case  may  be,  all  those  things  have  been  entirely  done 
away  with  by  the  use  of  these  ballot  machines. 

It  is  important  to  speak  of  this  at  this  time  because  any  failure  of  a 
voting  machine  attains  great  publicity,  and  it  has  already  been  published 
broadcast  through  the  country  that  in  the  recent  election  last  week  two  of 
our  machines  obviously  did  fail.  That  subject  is  being  investigated  to- 
day before  the  board  of  canvassers,  the  board  of  supervisors  of  the 
county  of  Erie.  The  two  machines  are  over  at  the  City  Hall  and  the 
fault  is  going  to  be  found  out,  whatever  it  is.  One  or  two  candidates 
received  several  hundred  votes  less  than  they  were  entitled  to,  while  the 
rest  got  the  proper  number, — there  was  some  fault  in  the  mechanism. 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  505 

Up  to  this  moment  the  party  whose  candidates  were  injured  by  that  false 
result  does  not  suspect  any  intentional  wrong-doing.  It  simply  seems 
to  be  a  breakdown  of  those  two  machines.  Very  peculiarly  two  ma- 
chines performed  the  same  tricks,  and  against  the  same  candidates,  but 
it  does  not  seem  to  be  possible  that  they  could  have  been  intentionally 
fixed  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  that  thing.  Notwithstanding  that,  up  to  the 
present  time,  I  want  to  say  on  behalf  of  the  people  of  Buffalo  that  we 
believe  in  the  voting  machine,  and  we  know  that  the  voting  machine  has 
taken  the  place  of  human  agencies  for  recording  and  counting  votes,  in 
a  way  that  has  done  a  great  deal  for  purity  in  our  elections  for  many 
years. 

But  I  want  to  go  further,  and  point  out  one  or  two  other  things  they 
may  accomplish.  It  has  always  been  remarkable  to  us  in  Buffalo  that  our 
friends  in  New  York  City  have  never  adopted  voting  machines  as  a 
means  of  curing  some  of  the  evils  they  complain  of;  and  the  objections 
always  made  to  them  have  been  these :  first,  the  heavy 
Objections  to  expense  involved,  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  are 
their  Use  complicated  and  patented  machines.  The  original  cost, 

I  believe,  was  some  five  or  six  hundred  dollars  each. 
That  may  possibly  be  reduced  now,  but  being  a  patented  machine,  prob- 
ably not  very  much  reduced.  Buffalo  uses  115,  and  has  to  have  more  in 
store.  New  York  City  would  use  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred,  or  even 
more.  The  initial  cost  is  great,  but  after  that  they  reduce  the  annual 
expense  of  the  elections  very  largely. 

The  second  objection  is  to  the  absence  of  secrecy,  because  with  the 
machine  the  voting  is  done  by  pulling  a  lever,  and  that  does  make  a  per- 
ceptible noise.  The  person  who  goes  in  and  votes  a  straight  party  ticket, 
makes  one  click  only.  Of  course,  if  there  are  constitutional  amendments 
they  make  one  or  two  or  three  more  sounds,  if  he  votes  for  them.  But 
usually  a  paid  voter  would  be  persuaded  not  to  vote  for  these,  but  to 
vote  one  click,  thereby  recording  a  straight  party  vote  for  the  candidates 
and  no  more.  If  another  lever  is  moved  it  can  be  heard.  That  does,  to 
a  slight  degree,  remove  the  secrecy  of  voting,  although  it  is  all  done 
behind  curtains  where  it  cannot  be  seen. 

As  to  the  expense,  the  great  cost  of  this  machine  comes  from  its  pa- 
tentable  quality.  It  is  due  to  the  complication  of  the  mechanism,  which 
records  the  votes  of  a  great  many  candidates  by  pulling  one  general 
lever,  and  also  individual  votes  by  pulling  individual  levers.  You  can 
pull  a  party  column  lever  and  vote  for  them  all.  You  can  move  back,  if 
you  are  voting  the  Republican  ticket,  the  pointer  of  a  Republican  candi- 
date, and  vote  for  a  Democratic  candidate  in  a  different  column  on  the 
same  line,  and  also  sometimes  on  a  different  line.  Those  are  the  com- 
plications which  are  covered  by  patents,  and  which  make  the  machine 
expensive,  and  also  make  it  dangerous,  liable  to  break  down  because  of 
its  complexity.  Now,  with  a  simple  machine,  with  the  names  of  the  can- 


506  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

dictates  arranged  alphabetically,  or  at  least  not  in  party  columns,  and  a 
lever  opposite  each  one,  by  pulling  that  lever  it  records  on  a  single  dial, 
and  there  is  no  other  means  of  moving  that  dial.  I  am  prepared  to  say 
that  such  a  machine  would  not  be  patentable.  because  this  mechanism  has 
long  been  used  all  over  the  world.  With  the  elimination  of  patents  will 
disappear  the  great  expense  of  the  machine,  and  the  chances  of  break- 
down will  disappear  because  of  the  simplicity  of  the  mechanism. 

As  to  the  question  of  secrecy,  such  a  machine  will  click  for  every  man 

you  vote   for,  and  nobody  is  going  to  stop  to   count  whether  it   clicks 

five  or  seven  or  nine  or  eleven  times,  when  so  many 

Secrecy  men  are  on  the  ticket.     You  may  vote  for  one  man, 

and  move  the  pointer  back  and  vote  for  another,  for 

these  machines  do  not  record  until  you  come  out.     You  can  change  as 

much  as  you  like  while  you  are  in  the  voting  space.    The  recording  is 

done  when  you  throw   back  the   curtain.     The   entire   objection   on   the 

ground  of  secrecy  would  be  removed  if  we  had  this  form  of  ballot. 

Those  are  considerations  which  make  me  think  that  the  urging  of  the 
ballot  machines  will  be  an  auxiliary  to  help  in  the  general  movement  for 
ballot  reform,  because  it  is  so  obvious  that  a  machine  constructed  on  those 
simple  lines  will  be  safe,  economical,  entirely  secret  and  as  expeditious 
as  lightning  in  recording  the  vote.  The  vote  is  recorded  the  instant  the 
voting  is  concluded. 

MR.  PLEYDELL:  I  want  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  other  side  of  this 
question.  I  live  and  vote  in  the  State  of  New  Jersey  where  we  have  been 
afflicted  with  this  machine.  They  cost  the  state  over  a  million  dollars. 
They  were  not  put  in  all  of  the  districts.  Wherever 
New  Jersey's  they  were  put  in  a  district  there  was  such  complaint 
Experience  that  the  commissioner  who  had  charge  of  them  would 

shift  them  off  on  another  district  until  nobody  would 
take  them.  I  was  in  one  of  those  districts  that  got  a  machine  on  the 
last  shuffle  and  had  to  keep  it.  The  protest  was  so  strong  that  the  legis- 
lature passed  a  referendum  law  by  which  the  people  of  a  voting  district 
could  have  a  special  election  as  to  getting  rid  of  the  machine.  My  town 
held  a  special  election  quickly.  It  was  so  nearly  unanimous  that  very 
few  people  bothered  to  vote.  It  is  a  small  district  with  about  a  thousand 
voters,  and  some  260  of  us  went  around  to  vote  the  machine  out.  About 
five  or  six  people  voted  to  keep  them.  Every  municipality  in  which  a 
vote  was  taken  voted  them  out.  The  machines  are  cumbersome,  they  are 
complex,  they  are  a  help  to  the  party  machine.  The  voting  machine  used 
is  so  complex  that  a  leading  professor  of  engineering  at  Princeton  con- 
fessed after  he  came  out  that  he  did  not  know  how  he  had  voted,  and  I 
have  been  informed  that  the  governor  of  the  state  who  signed  the  bill 
to  put  the  machines  in  has  stated  that  he  didn't  know  how  he  voted, 
and  I  know  that  several  judges  of  our  courts  stated  that  after  they  had 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT 


507 


come  out  of  the  booth  that  they  didn't  know  for  whom  they  had  voted. 
While  it  is  true  that  some  of  these  difficulties  can  be  overcome  if  you 
do  not  have  the  party  column,  and  would  be  lessened  somewhat  if  you 
had  a  short  ballot,  nevertheless  there  are  other  difficulties  that  would 
arise.  You  can  vote  a  party  ticket  very  quickly  with  the  machine,  but 
when  you  have  only  one  machine  in  a  voting  district  and  a  lot  of  people 
to  vote  there  is  an  unconscious  pressure  on  every  man  to  vote  quickly. 
If  he  doesn't,  he  gets  yelled  at,  and  if  he  stays  too  long  they  go  in  and 
yank  him  out,  and  you  have  not  the  opportunities  you  have  with  the  pres- 
ent voting  booths.  These  are  important  things.  If  we  want  the  people 
to  discriminate  when  they  vote,  we  have  got  to  give  them  every  facility 
to  discriminate,  instead  of  making  it  hard  for  them.  It  is  bad  enough 
to  have  a  blanket  ballot,  but  at  least  a  man,  if  he  spoils  one,  can  come 
out  and  get  another,  and  after  he  has  marked  it  he  has  some  idea  for 
whom  he  is  voting. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  once  said  he  could  make  a 
dictionary  but  he  could  not  convey  the  capacity  to  comprehend  it.  I 
suppose  that  the  advocates  of  this  machine  will  say  that  the  company  can 
make  a  machine  which  will  adequately  record  the  vote  but  it  could  not 
give  to  New  Jersey  governors  and  justices  and  professors  the  capacity 
to  comprehend  the  machine.  [Laughter.]  That  would  probably  be  the 
natural  conclusion. 

I  will  say  in  Indiana  the  same  thing  is  now  being  considered.  Two  of 
the  machines  have  failed  to  register  correctly  at  Indianapolis  and  a 
gentleman  of  my  own  city  told  me  he  had  employed  some  detectives  to 
work  upon  the  question  of  whether  the  machine  had  been  or  could  be 
manipulated  by  either  of  the  two  political  parties  or  managers  in  such 
way  as  to  make  the  result  fraudulent.  Upon  the  investigation  of  that 
matter,  and  this  question  here,  would  depend  very  largely  it  seems  to  me 
the  question  as  to  whether  those  machines  are  entitled  to  the  confidence 
of  the  community. 

HORACE  E.  DEMING,  of  New  York  City:  While  we  are  discussing  the 
question  of  voting  machines  there  is  one  aspect  of  it  that  I  think  we 
ought  to  bear  in  mind.  What  a  voting  machine  does  now,  and  does 
meritoriously  when  it  works,  is  like  a  cash  register,  it  facilitates  the 
recording  of  the  vote,  and  when  the  poles  close,  within  a  few  moments 
you  know  how  many  votes  each  person  has  received.  In  that  respect, 
like  an  adding  machine,  or  a  cash  register,  it  is  of  some  value  in 
facilitating  the  quickness  of  the  returns.  But  it  does  another  thing.  A 

voting  machine,  in  order  to  be  adequate  in  New 
An  Investment  in  York  State  must  be  constructed  so  as  to  work  our 
Vicious  Voting  monstrous  ballot,  a  most  vicious  form  of  voting.  It 

help  to  preserve  and  make  perpetual  that  vicious  form 
of  voting.  Every  hundred  thousand  dollars  that  a  city  puts  into  a 


508  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

series  of  voting  machines  is  a  permanent  investment  in  a  vicious  method 
of  voting.  You  get  the  strongest  element  of  greed  and  selfishness  on 
the  side  of  preserving  what  is  a  blot  on  our  civilization.  If  you  had  a 
simple  ballot,  if  you  had  an  honest  ballot,  if  you  had  a  readily  under- 
standable ballot,  if  you  had  a  ballot  that  held  out  equal  justice  to  each 
candidate,  or  each  office,  which  was  fair  to  each  voter  who  wished  to 
discriminate  among  those  candidates,  if  you  had  that  ballot  and  you 
wanted  to  count  it  a  little  more  rapidly,  why,  have  a  cash  register. 
The  only  reason  we  have  any  need  for  a  cash  register  is  because  we 
have  a  vicious  form  of  ballot,  and  to  perpetuate  that  vicious  form  of 
ballot  by  saying,  "  Here's  a  contrivance  that  will  count  it  more  easily," 
I  account,  very  little  short  of  a  political  crime.  In  Massachusetts,  where 
they  have  a  long  ballot,  but  a  simple  one  to  understand,  in  one  polling 
booth,  in  less  hours  than  we  occupy,  they  count  without  a  single  error 
sixteen  hundred  or  seventeen  hundred  of  those  ballots.  We  have  a 
ballot  so  enormously  bad  that  we  have  to  find  a  whole  lot  of  ignorant 
people,  half  educated,  to  man  the  polls  to  see  to  the  counting.  Then  we 
say,  here  is  a  machine  that  will  rid  us  of  some  of  these  errors.  The  real 
thing  that  we  ought  to  call  for  is  a  decent  ballot,  and  until  we  get  that 
decent  ballot  let  none  of  us  advocate  the  putting  of  any  public  money 
in  any  machine,  however  ingenious,  that  helps  to  perpetuate  it.  [Applause.] 

MR.  MOSIER:  We  have  had  voting  machines  in  Rochester.  I 
think  we  were  one  of  the  first,  if  not  the  first,  to  adopt  the 

ballot  machines.  The  original  machine,  I  think, 
Voting  Machines  was  invented  by  a  Rochester  man.  There  has 
in  Rochester  been  a  suggestion  in  (Rochester  that  they  should  be 

abandoned,  a  very  pronounced  suggestion.  There  has 
been  difficulty;  there  is  a  great  deal  of  dissatisfaction  with  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  approval.  We  stand  between  the 
two  views  that  have  been  expressed  here  to-day.  Some  years  ago  I  was 
the  plaintiff  in  an  action  in  relation  to  an  election  in  which  one  or  two 
machines,  one  in  particular,  was  clearly  wrong.  It  registered  25%  of 
the  votes  blank  on  the  whole  ticket  voted  for,  which  on  the  face  of  it 
is  an  absurdity.  We  tried  to  find  out  what  was  the  matter  with  that 
machine,  and  we  haven't  found  out  yet,  and  we  never  will,  [Applause], 
because  the  laws  that  are  framed  by  the  legislature  with  reference  to 
voting  are  framed  for  partisan  purposes.  One  of  the  objections  to  vot- 
ing machines  is  that  they  may  be  tampered  with,  and  a  great  many  people 
in  Rochester  think  that  they  have  been  tampered  with,  and  that  the  law 
which  governs  elections  is  so  framed  that  if  they  are  tampered  with  the 
discovery  of  it  can  never  be  made.  So  that  when  we  consider  the  question 
of  ballot  machines  we  must  also  consider  the  question  of  the  election 
law,  and  before  any  community  determines  to  adopt  a  voting  machine 
process  of  voting,  it  should  look  very  carefully  into  the  whole  subject 
because  there  are  unquestionably  two  sides  to  it. 


DR.  JOHN  D.  BONNAR,  of  Buffalo:  The  matter  as  presented  to  us  to-day 
in  regard  to  the  unearned  increment  appears  to  me  of  a  somewhat 
theoretical  character.  The  gentleman  told  us  that  eight  thirteenths  of 

the  taxable  value  of  property  was  on  the  real  estate, 
The  Unearned  and  inasmuch  as  all  taxes  represent  wages  in  a  meas- 
In.crem.ent  ure,  or  value  received,  the  man  who  puts  his  money 

into  real  estate,  be  it  for  a  small  amount  for  a  poor 
man,  or  for  a  larger  investment,  to  wait  for  the  so  called  unearned  in- 
crement, is  paying  for  that  increment  in  the  way  of  taxation  during  the 
time  that  that  value  is  increasing.  When  you  think  that  the  man  who 
improves  his  property,  builds  a  home  or  a  business  block  upon  it,  is 
drawing  a  large  revenue  therefrom,  while  the  man  who  is  simply  hold- 
ing on,  possibly  at  a  great  expense  to  himself,  almost  beyond  what  he 
can  endure,  the  man  who  has  the  property  improved  is  the  man  who  is 
deriving  the  greatest  amount  of  earned  increment.  Of  course,  it  is  an 
earned  increment,  but  at  the  same  time  he  is  getting  value  on  his  land 
as  well  as  on  the  investment  in  his  real  estate,  and  if  he  had  a  building 
of  one  story  as  against  the  man  with  a  building  of  five  stories,  the  man 
with  the  building  of  five  stories  would  certainly  get  a  greater  income 
from  his  real  estate  than  the  man  with  a  building  of  one  story,  and  still 
the  man  with  the  one  story  building  would  be  supposed  to  pay,  accord- 
ing to  the  principle  of  levying  taxes  according  to  real  estate  values, — 
would  be  supposed  to  pay  as  much  taxes  as  the  man  with  the  building  of 
five  stories.  The  whole  of  the  trouble  is  that  we  mostly  ascribe  to  the 
rich  man  this  guilt  of  the  unearned  increment,  when  many  poor  men  are 
buying  lots  toward  the  time  when  they  can  get  enough  money  together  to 
build  their  homes  upon  those  lots;  and  if  the  unearned  increment  tax  is 
to  be  put  upon  the  rich  man's  lot  it  must  in  equity  be  placed  upon  the 
poor  man's  lot.  Therefore  if  taxation  represents  service  given,  as  the 
equitable  basis,  the  man  who  has  his  property  improved  is  getting  police 
protection,  fire  protection  and  those  public  advantages,  which  the  man 
with  the  vacant  lot  certainly  does  not  get,  for  he  needs  no  fire  or  police 
protection  for  his  vacant  lot,  and  the  great  advance  in  value  comes 
mainly  from  the  extension  of  public  utilities  into  the  section,  and  the 
increased  value  is  occasioned  more  by  public  utilities  than  it  is  by  those 
who  have  invested  their  money  and  paid  the  taxes  to  maintain  the  city 
during  a  greater  or  less  number  of  years,  for  the  improvement  of  that 
particular  section.  By  the  arbitrary  method  of  compelling  men  to  build 
upon  their  vacant  lots  we  destroy  industry  and  help  to  paralyze  the  prog- 
ress of  communities,  whereas,  if  we  allow  them  the  opportunity  to  buy 
and  to  sell,  as  they  would  any  other  commodity,  and  pay  their  taxes  on 
the  property  they  own,  it  is  simply  in  accordance  with  the  strict  business 
principles  which  are  adopted  in  any  other  line.  They  pay  taxes,  pay  as- 
sessments and  interest  on  investment,  and  they  have  then  borne  eight- 
thirteenths  of  the  taxes  without  any  income  whatever  except  what  will 


510  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

come  to  them  at  some  remote  time  that  they  know  not  of,  when  they 
too  may  be  fortunate  and  then  begin  to  get  returns  on  their  investment. 

HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND,  of  New  York:  I  want  to  draw  just  one  parallel 
between  the  taxation  of  the  unearned  increment  and  another  movement 
which  most  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  are  believers  in,  namely, 

the  conservation  movement.  It  seems  to  me  that  they 
Unearned  both  spring  from  the  same  fundamental,  and,  I  think, 

Increment  and        eternal  principle.     I  hold  that  the  only  real   right  to 
Conservation  property  arises  from  labor.     What  a  man  labors  upon, 

what  he  impresses  with  his  personality,  belongs  to  him 
against  all  the  world.  Everything  else,  which  is  the  product  of  natural 
forces,  which  is  part  of  the  universe,  should  belong  to  no  man  particu- 
larly, except  as  he  impresses  some  part  of  it  with  his  own  personality, 
but  should  belong  to  the  whole  community.  That  is  the  principle  on 
which  we  are  now  working  out  our  conservation  system.  We  are  say- 
ing that  the  land  and  the  natural  deposits  and  the  forests  and  the 
water  powers  which  still  belong  to  all  the  people  shall  remain  the  prop- 
erty of  all  the  people  and  those  who  would  use  them  shall  do  it  only  by 
giving  back  a  proper  share  of  their  proceeds  to  all  the  people.  We  can 
do  that  with  the  part  of  the  national  domain  which  still  belongs  to  us, 
but  we  cannot  do  it  with  that  part  of  it  of  which  we  have  disposed  ta 
private  individuals ;  and  the  only  way  that  we  can  get  for  all  of  us  that 
share  of  that  which  by  right  belongs  to  all  of  us,  and  not  to  the  individual 
man,  is  by  some  system  of  taking  part  of  the  proceeds,  such  as  the 
taxation  of  the  unearned  increment.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  movement 
in  England,  which  began  by  the  introduction  of  the  Lloyd-George  budget, 
is  part  of  the  same  world-wide  movement  which  in  this  country  is  show- 
ing itself  in  the  conservation  movement;  and  therefore,  since  I  believe 
in  the  one,  I  believe  in  the  other,  and  I  believe  in  them  both  because  it 
seems  to  me  they  are  founded  on  a  fundamentally  right  principle. 

MR.  PLEYDELL:  I  agree  thoroughly  with  what  Mr.  Rowland  has  said 
as  to  the  theoretical  and  fundamental  principles  back  of  the  suggestions 
in  Mr.  Martin's  paper.  Mr.  Martin  has  done  a  service  in  bringing  that 
subject  up  now  before  the  League,  because  it  is  something  which  in  many 
of  its  aspects  is  coming  very  decidedly  to  the  front.  We  have  evidences 
of  that  on  all  sides.  Mr.  Martin  quoted  from  the  address  of  Mayor 
Fitzgerald  in  Boston  made  on  Saturday  night.  In  Monday  morning's 
papers  in  Pittsburgh  there  was  a  three-column  statement  by  the  city 
comptroller  along  practically  the  same  lines,  pointing  out  the  great  in- 
creases in  property  in  Pittsburgh  and  suggesting  that  Pittsburgh  needed 
two  things  to  make  it  a  great  city,  one  being  a  canal  to  Lake  Erie  and 
the  other  being  some  modified  application  of  an  increased  tax  upon  the 
value  of  land  as  distinguished  from  other  forms  of  property.  These 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  51  r 

things  are  significant.  They  are  becoming  immediately  practical  questions ; 
and  in  that  regard  I  want  to  sound  a  note  of  caution  about  which  I 
have  differed  sometimes  with  my  friend  Mr.  Martin.  When  he  speaks 
of  this  large  unearned  increment  amounting  to  these  bililons  of  dollars  in 
values  in  the  city  of  New  York  and  elsewhere,  he  is  dealing  with  some- 
thing that  is  a  legal  fiction  economically.  Those  are  values  only  to  the 
individuals  who  are  transferring  them.  They  are  not  social  values. 
Those  sale  values  of  land  are  simply  a  capitalization 
Individual  and  of  the  annual  income  with  the  actual  or  potential, 
Social  Values  which  is  the  real  value,  which  is  nothing  like  as  ex- 
tensive, of  course.  In  other  words,  what  makes  the 
buying  and  selling  price  of  land  as  between  two  individuals,  is  what  they 
expect  it  is  going  to  be  worth  to  them,  or  to  other  people  as  tenants  to 
occupy  that  spot,  annually.  Capitalizing  that  on  a  five  per  cent  basis  gives 
us  some  enormous  figures  in  these  sales  transactions  that  are  not  real  values 
for  taxation  purposes.  I  simply  wish  to  note  that  much  on  the  record  as 
a  word  of  caution.  Adam  Smith  laid  down  the  principle  over  a  hundred 
years  ago  when  he  said  that  ground  rents  were  a  peculiarly  fit  subject  for 
taxation  in  that  the  expenditures  in  urban  communities,  went  so  largely 
to  make  their  values,  and  I  think  that  is  very  apparent  to  all  of  us. 
When  we  open  new  streets  and  sewers  we  try  to  charge  some  of  the 
actual  capital  cost  of  construction  of  these  things  against  the  capital 
values  of  the  adjoining  land.  It  would  be  far  simpler,  and  would  settle 
some  of  those  subway  problems,  if  we  took  a  slightly  increased  tax  an- 
nually upon  the  benefit  of  land.  It  would  be  much  easier  for  the  owners 
to  pay  it  because  it  would  come  in  annual  form,  and  it  has  other  fiscal 
administrative  advantages  which  would  not  apply  to  the  present  system 
of  taking  limited  sums  at  the  time  of  transfer  and  sale. 

Another  illustration :  I  happen  to  have  a  vacant  plot  next  to  where  I 
live.  Every  time  I  go  to  my  house  I  think  of  how  I  am  paying  in  various 
neighborhood  forms  to  keep  up  a  nice  macadam  road,  and  lights,  and  in 
a  certain  measure  police  protection  past  that  property,  which  the  owner 
will  not  sell  to  the  man  who  built  my  house,  who  wants  to  build  a  house 
there  and  bring  me  some  neighbors  in  place  of  a  vacant  lot  which  is  a 
nuisance.  That  man  is  holding  that  property  absolutely  useless,  paying 
a  very  light  tax  upon  it,  which  I  am  glad  to  say  has  been  increased,  be- 
cause the  assessor  has  taken  the  same  view  as  I  do.  But  that  obstruction 
to  the  community  is  going  to  get  a  large  increase  in  value  for  an  owner 
fifty  miles  away,  taking  no  interest  whatever  in  the  property  except  to 
pay  tax  bills  when  he  is  afraid  of  a  tax  sale.  Whereas  we  who  have 
lived  and  worked  in  the  community  and  built  it  up  and  kept  up  schools, 
and  who  must  have  libraries  and  public  buildings,  are  helping  to  make 
values  for  this  man  who  contributes  only  slightly  to  the  expenses. 

STILES  P.  JONES:  There  is  a  practical  proposition  here  that  appeals  to 


512  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

me.  The  single  tax  is  coming.  The  principle  of  it,  either  as  a  whole  or 
in  modified  form.  It  will  come,  as  I  see  it,  not  because  it  is  a  great 
economical  principle  and  appeals  to  people  as  such, 
The  Single  Tax  but  through  taxation  necessities.  Some  of  these  days 
Principle  our  hard-headed  city  officials,  our  hard-headed  busi- 

ness men,  are  going  to  see  that  they  cannot  go  any 
further  with  the  present  system.  There  are  growing  social  necessities 
all  the  while.  Those  must  be  met  from  somewhere.  These  hard-headed 
men  are  going  to  put  on  their  spectacles  and  then  they  will  see  here  an 
easy  way  of  getting  some  money  out  of  somebody  that  it  doesn't  belong 
to  really  and  who  cannot  squeal.  [Laughter.]  That  is  where  and  how 
I  see  the  single  tax  principle  is  going  to  be  applied. 

PROF.  HATTON  :  Just  one  very  practical  suggestion  with  regard  to  this 
unearned  increment,  I  would  like  to  make,  apart  from  the  controversy 
the  broad  general  principle  has  aroused.  Whether  we  know  it  or  not, 
and  some  of  us  do  in  our  cities,  we  are,  in  making  certain  public  im- 
provements, passing  over  a  very  large  bonus  to  people,  who,  either  through 
foresight,  or  through  being  tipped  off,  as  somebody  said  this  afternoon, 
or  through  mere  luck  happen  to  be  in  a  place  where  they  benefit 
by  public  improvements.  For  instance,  if  we  build  a  park  in  a  city,  as 
things  go  in  America,  the  whole  people  pay  for  that  park.  That  results 
at  once  in  an  enormous  increase  in  value  to  property  immediately  ad- 
joining, and  all  those  of  us  who  are  taxpayers  get  out  of  that,  all  the 
recompense  we  get  for  what  we  have  paid,  is  a  slightly  additional  sum 
that  we  can  get  when  we  come  to  put  value  on  that 
Excess  property  again.  Now,  a  very  practical  suggestion  I 

Condemnation  have  to  make,  is  this, — why  should  not  American 
cities  be  reasonable  enough  to  do  what  most  English 
cities  are  doing?  That  is,  in  the  case  of  public  improvements  like  parks 
and  boulevards,  to  condemn  more  land  than  they  need  for  the  improve- 
ment itself.  No  one  would  claim  that  that  is  any  injustice  to  the  ad- 
jacent property  holder,  because  everyone  knows  that  under  the  process 
of  eminent  domain  as  it  is  worked  in  this  country  a  man  whose  property 
is  condemned  practically  always  gets  a  good  deal  more  for  it  than  he 
would  in  the  open  market.  At  the  same  time,  having  condemned  more 
property  than  they  need,  and  then  selling  that  property  at  the  higher 
value  resulting  from  making  the  improvement,  it  is  perfectly  possible 
for  the  city  to  get  at  least  the  beginning  of  the  unearned  increment 
which  results  from  that  public  improvement.  I  have  been  more  and 
more  amazed  that  American  legislatures  have  not  been  besieged  to  bestow 
that  extension  of  power  of  eminent  domain  upon  our  cities. 

On  motion  adjourned. 


513 
THURSDAY  MORNING  SESSION. 

THURSDAY,  NOVEMBER  17,  1910,  10:  15  A.  M.   • 
President  Foulke  called  the  meeting  to  order. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  The  next  paper  is  upon  "The  Operation  of  Wo- 
man's Suffrage  and  its  Local  Effect ",  a  report  by  Miss  Mary  Winsor  of 
Haverford,  President  of  the  Pennsylvania  Limited  Suffrage  League, 
whom  I  have  the  pleasure  of  introducing  to  the  League.  [Applause.] 

[For  Miss  Winsor's  paper  see  page  317.] 

Miss  WINSOR  (continuing):  It  has  given  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to 
present  this  paper  to  the  National  Municipal  League,  hoping  that  some 
of  the  facts  I  have  given  may  suggest  that  possibly  justice  to  woman- 
hood may  in  the  end  prove  to  be  a  help  to  the  League,  and  also  because 
when  I  was  a  very  young  girl  in  Philadelphia,  happening  quite  by  chance 
to  walk  into  the  meeting  that  was  held  there  in  1894,  I  became  so  inter- 
ested in  the  discussion,  much  of  which  was  entirely  over  my  head,  that 
I  and  many  others  in  Philadelphia  date  our  interest  in  good  government 
from  that  meeting  of  the  National  Municipal  League.  [Applause.] 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE  :  I  feel  a  sympathy  with  many  of  the  ideas  presented 
in  this  paper.  There  is  one  that  strikes  me  as  a  little  novel,  and  that  is 
the  lesson  that  the  women  are  teaching  us  on  the  subject  of  scratching. 
It  reminds  me  of  the  little  girl  whose  mother  reproved  her  very  much 
because  she  kicked  and  she  bit  and  she  scratched.  Her  mother  called  the 
clergyman  in,  who  told  her  that  if  she  did  that  it  was  taught  her  of  the 
devil.  She  resisted  and  said  it  might  be  so  of  the  kicking  and  the  bit- 
ing, but  the  scratching  was  her  own  idea.  [Laughter.] 

The  next  paper  is  on  the  subject  of  "  The  Education  of  Foreigners  in 
American  Citizenship ",  by  Miss  Grace  Abbott,  of  Chicago,  Secretary  of 
the  League  for  the  Protection  of  Immigrants. 

[For  Miss  Abbott's  paper  see  page  375.] 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  This  very   admirable   discussion   of   the   needs   of 
the  immigrant,  a  question  which  is  of  immense  importance  in  American 
life,  will  be  followed  by  a  discussion  of  another  ques- 
The  Liquor  tion    that    affects    cities    very    intimately,    the    liquor 

Problem  problem.     Professor    F.    D.    Bramhall   of  the   Univer- 

sity of  Chicago  will  first  read  a  paper  upon,  "  Some 
Political  Phases  of  the  Liquor  Problem  in  Chicago." 

PROF.  BRAMHALL:  I  want  to  say  just  two  things  before  I  begin  to  read 
the  paper  which  I  had  prepared.  The  first  is  I  want  you  to  remember 
that  any  inferences  I  may  draw  are  inferences  from  the  local  situation, 
and  a  local  situation  which  is  decidedly  peculiar,  and  peculiar  largely 


514  BUFFALO  CONFERENCE 

in  the  light  of  the  circumstances  which  Miss  Abbott  has  emphasized.  In 
the  second  place  I  want  to  say  that  Miss  Abbot  and  not  I  should  have 
written  this  paper,  because  she  could  write  it  with  a  knowledge  and  an 
insight  into  the  peculiarities  of  the  Chicago  situation  which  I  have  not. 
I  will  ask  you  to  remember  Miss  Abbott's  point  of  view  as  thoroughly 
as  you  can  while  I  read  this  much  less  interesting  paper  on  the  local 
Chicago  liquor  situation. 

[For  Prof.  Bramhall's  paper  see  page  423.] 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  We  will  have  a  further  discussion  of  this  same 
subject,  more  general  in  its  character,  however,  by  Prof.  Augustus  Ray- 
mond Hatton  of  the  Municipal  Association  of  Cleveland,  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  "  The  Liquor  Situation  in  Ohio." 

[For  Prof.  Hatton's  paper  see  page  395.] 

MR.  HULL:  Mr.  President,  believing  that  the  League  ought  to  express 
its  appreciation  to  the  city  of  Buffalo,  I  have  prepared  this  short 
resolution. 

Resolved,  That  the  National  Municipal  League  gratefully  acknowledge 

the  many  courtesies  which  have  been  shown  it  by  the  City  of  Buffalo 

during  the  sessions  of  the  Sixteenth  Annual  Meeting 

Resolution  of         now    closing.     Especially   do   the   delegates    acknowl- 

Thanks  edge  the  gracious  hospitality  of  Ansley  Wilcox.  Esq., 

Chairman  of  the  Reception  Committee  who  has  been 

untiring  in  his  efforts  to  make  us  remember  Buffalo  with  pleasure. 

Resolved,  also  that  we  express  our  appreciation  to  our  hosts  the  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce  and  Manufacturers'  Club  and  the  Municipal  League  of 
Buffalo,  and  also  to  the  several  clubs  all  of  which  have  so  kindly  thrown 
open  their  doors  to  us. 

Resolved,  further  that  these  resolutions  be  spread  upon  the  records  of 
the  League. 

The  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  Unless  there  is  some  objection  upon  the  part  of 
the  League  that  consent  will  certainly  be  given. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  We  now  are  to  listen  to  a  paper  upon  another  very 
important  phase  of  city  government,  "An  Effective  Civil  Service  Law  in 
Cities ",  by  Elliot  H.  Goodwin,  Secretary  of  the  National  Civil  Service 
Reform  League." 

MR.  GOODWIN  :  I  am  discussing  here  a  somewhat  technical  subject. 
This  is  not  an  argument  in  favor  of  civil  service  reform.  My  paper 
takes  it  for  granted  that  the  people  of  the  city,  or  the  legislature,  as  the 
case  may  be,  have  voted  in  favor  of  the  adoption  of  the  principle  of 
civil  service  reform  in  connection  with  the  city  charter,  and  then  dis- 
cusses how  that  can  be  made  effective. 

[For  Mr.  Goodwin's  paper  see  page  304.] 


FOR  GOOD  CITY  GOVERNMENT  5^ 

MR.  HARPER:  This  resolution  in  its  body  says  all  that  is  necessary  to 
explain  its  purport.  Therefore,  with  the  permission  of  the  chair,  I  desire 
to  present  it. 

Resolved,  That  the  National  Municipal  League  desires  to  express  its 
approval  of  the  inauguration  of  the  comprehensive  inquiry  now  in  progress 
into  the  business  methods  of  the  national  government,  with  a  view  to 
securing  more  efficient  and  economical  administration  of  national  affairs. 

Real  progress  in  improving  governmental  conditions  must  largely  come 
through  such  painstaking  inquiries,  and  the  formulation  of  definite  con- 
crete measures  of  reform.  The  League  stands  pledged  to  use  its  efforts 
to  stimulate  similar  work  in  its  field  of  municipal  government,  and  ex- 
presses the  hope  that  among  the  earliest  fruits  of  this  inquiry  will  be 
the  passage  of  an  appropriation  Act  for  the  city  of  Washington  that  will 
embody  the  functional  arrangement  of  the  budget  and  the  standard 
classification  of  expenditures  so  essential  to  government  accounting. 

The  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted. 

PRESIDENT  FOULKE:  The  time  has  now  come  for  the  adjournment  of  the 
annual  meeting.  I  think  there  is  no  one  who  has  been  present  at  our 
various  sessions  but  who  must  have  been  impressed  with  the  extreme 
value  of  many  of  the  papers  and  of  some  of  the  discussions.  Indeed  I 
would  say  that  if  there  were  to  be  any  change  in  the  future,  we  ought 
to  have  rather  more  discussion,  and  I  am  going  to  use  what  little  in- 
fluence the  president  is  supposed  to  possess  with  the  real  authority, 
[laughter],  to  see  to  it  if  we  can  have  either  one  or  two  more  sessions 
so  that  we  can  give  a  little  more  time  to  the  discussion,  or  else  that 
there  be  rather  fewer  papers  so  that  in  that  way  there  will  be  greater 
opportunity  to  discuss  them. 

I  am  sure  that  we  not  only  feel  very  grateful  to  our  friends  of  Buffalo 
for  the  entertainment  they  have  given  us  but  I  believe  there  is  not  a 
member  of  the  League  but  who  feels  that  on  the  whole  this  has  been  a 
very  successful  conference  and  convention. 

I  now  dclare  the  convention  adjourned  until  the  further  call  of  the 
Fxecutive  Committee. 


The  Civic  Secretaries'  Conference.' 

At  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  Secretary  of  the 
National  Municipal  League,  a  meeting  of  secretaries  of  civic  associations 
in  America  was  called  to  be  held  in  connection  with  the  Buffalo  confer- 
ence on  good  city  government.  As  this  is  the  first  time  that  the  mem- 
bers of  this  comparatively  new  profession  have  been  called  together,  the 
invitation  suggested  an  informal  discussion  on  three  points : 

1.  The  purpose  of  local  civic  associations.     How  does  it  differ   from 
that   of    a   business    organization,    such    as    a    chamber    of    commerce,    a 
charity    organization    society,    the    city    government?     Should    one    civic 
organization  seek  to  arouse  the  interest  of  citizens  in  all  phases  of  com- 
munity  welfare,    or    should   there   be   a   separate   organization    for    each 
of  those  matters  which  are  of  the  greatest  importance,  such  as  housing, 
government,  civic  adornment,  sanitation,  etc? 

2.  The  basis  of  membership  in  local  civic  associations.     Should  they  be 
branches  of  other  organizations,   such  as  a  chamber  of  commerce,   and 
consequently  draw  their  membership  entirely  from  the  latter  or  should 
they  be   independent?     Should   the   effort   be   made   to   secure   members 
from  all  classes  of  society? 

3.  The  methods  to  be  used  by  local  civic  associations.     Should  these 
be  simply  educational?     Should  the  association  as  an  association  take  an 
active  part  in  securing  the  election  of  officials  in  sympathy  with  its  views? 

Twenty  associations  were  represented  by  their  secretaries  at  the  meet- 
ing, and  so  evident  was  the  value  of  the  conference  that  a  permanent  or- 
ganization was  formed  under  the  title,  "  Civic  Secretaries  Committee  of 
the  National  Municipal  League,"  for  the  purpose  of  "  considering  ques- 
tions which  arise  in  connection  with  the  organization  and  methods  of 
work  of  civic  associations."  The  officers  elected  were  Chairman,  Elliot 
H.  Goodwin,  New  York,  Secretary,  John  Ihlder,  105  East  22nd  Street, 
New  York  City,  Treasurer,  Addison  L.  Winship,  Boston  City  Club. 

Each  member  of  the  committee  undertakes,  first,  to  put  all  the  other 
members  on  his  mailing  list  to  receive  the  publications  issued  by  his  or- 
ganization ;  second,  to  make  his  office,  if  his  organization  is  local  in 
character,  an  information  bureau  regarding  all  matters  of  civic  interest 
in  his  city;  if  national,  regarding  all  matters  falling  within  its  province. 

In  order  that  the  discussion  might  begin  immediately  brief  papers  out- 
lining the  subject  from  three  points  of  view  were  prepared  by  Dr.  W.  H. 
Atherton,  Secretary  of  the  Montreal  Civic  Improvement  League,  Addison 

1  Edited  by  John  Ihlder,  Field  Secretary  National  Housing  Association 
and  Secretary  of  the  Civic  Secretaries'  Committee. 

(516) 


A.  L.  WINSHIP 


517 


L.  Winship,  Civic  Secretary  of  the  Boston  City  Club  and  Edward  J. 
Ward,  Advisor  in  Civic  and  Social  Center  Development,  University  Ex- 
tension Division,  University  of  Wisconsin.  Dr.  Atherton  was  prevented 
at  the  last  minute  from  attending  the  conference,  but  Dr.  J.  George 
Adami,  President  of  the  Montreal  League  came  in  his  stead,  so  federa- 
tions, such  as  the  League  represents,  had  their  spokesman. 

The  discussion  brought  out  the  fact  that  civic  organizations  may  be 
roughly  divided  into  three  classes:  one  typified  by  the  Boston  City  Club, 
which  provides  a  meeting  place  and  seeks  to  bring  together  men  interested 
in  civic  affairs,  and  by  association  and  contact  to  stimulate  and  strengthen 
this  interest,  but  to  leave  the  actual  carrying  out  of  constructive  work  to 
other  organizations  usually  composed  of  these  same  men;  a  second  typi- 
fied by  the  St.  Louis  Civic  League,  the  municipal  affairs  committee  of  the 
Grand  Rapids  Board  of  Trade  and  the  Pittsburgh  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce, and  the  Pittsburgh  Civic  Commission  which  seek  themselves  to 
carry  through  constructive  programs  for  civic  betterment;  and  a  third 
typified  by  the  Chicago  Municipal  Voters'  League  and  the  Minneapolis 
Voters'  League  which  concern  themselves  almost  entirely  with  the  records 
of  candidates  for  public  office. 

Mr.  Winship  opened  the  discussion  by  describing  the  Boston  City  Club, 
one  of  the  most  active  and  successful  civic  organizations  in  America. 
The  purpose  it  avows  is  to  arouse  the  interest  of  the 
The  Boston  citizens  in  civic  or  municipal  affairs ;  the  basis  of  mem- 

City  Club  bership  is  practically  as  wide  as  the  citizenship ;  the 

methods  are  to  bring  men  together,  educate  them, 
stimulate  their  interest  and  then  send  them  forth  to  do  constructive  work 
on  concrete  problems  as  members  of  other  organizations.  "  I  believe," 
he  said,  "  that  the  purpose  of  a  local  civic  organization  is  to  find  that 
desire  for  good  and  civic  betterment  in  a  man  that  is  rather  in  his  heart 
than  in  his  head,  and  when  you  have  found  it  in  his  heart  you  will  find 
that  you  have  a  man  who  will  be  a  continuing  force,  a  man  who  can 
be  put  upon  any  committee  and  not  prove  a  floating  pieces  of  driftwood. 
I  notice  that  my  friend  Dr.  Atherton,  of  Montreal,  has  taken  his 
perspective  from  the  Athens  of  old,  "  Beautiful,  Wholesome  City."  I 
think  perhaps  I  may  be  pardoned  for  a  little  reasonable  pride  and  loyalty 
if  I  ask  you  to  look  for  a  minute  from  the  perspective  of  the  modern 
Athens  which  I  have  the  honor  to  represent. 

"  What  I  have  to  say  will  be  entirely  from  my  own  experience  in  the 
Boston  City  Club,  which  I  suppose  holds  rather  a  unique  position  in  the 
roll  of  city  clubs,  because  it  has  gone  about  its  work  in  rather  a  differ- 
ent way.  In  it  a  thousand  men  get  together  every  day.  There  are  a 
great  many  organizations,  sub-organizations,  I  might  call  them,  that  have 
been  formed  and  have  gone  out  under  their  own  heads  and  secretaries 
to  do  their  own  specified  work;  at  the  same  time  they  have  their  regular 
meeting  place  in  the  club  house.  They  come  in  there,  perhaps  five  or  six 


518  THE  CIVIC  SECRETARIES'  CONFERENCE 

different  organizations  in  a  day,  instead  of  having  only  one  general 
weekly  or  semi-weekly  or  bi-weekly  or  monthly  meeting.  In  that  way 
they  are  kept  constantly  in  touch  with  the  work  that  each  organization 
is  doing.  The  spirit  that  is  engendered  by  that  association  is  what  we  have 
found  to  be  the  best  element  for  accomplishing  results.  In  the  member- 
ship of  this  club,  to  accomplish  the  greatest  good  and  secure  the  greatest 
activity  throughout  the  city,  we  have  enlisted  not  only  the  governor,  the 
governor-elect,  all  of  the  living  ex-governors,  the  mayor  and  the  ex- 
mayors,  the  heads  of  all  the  departments  in  the  city  hall,  the  heads  of 
many  of  the  departments  of  the  State  House,  about  twenty  of  the  judges 
of  the  various  courts  in  the  city,  about  half  of  the  membership  of  the 
Boston  Bar,  and  twenty-eight  of  the  clergymen  of  the  city.  I  think 
there  are  representatives  of  almost  every  activity  in  the  city  represented 
in  the  membership.  And  by  a  thousand  of  these  men  getting  together 
every  day  there  is  an  interest  aroused  and  kept  alive  that  I  think  can  be 
brought  about  in  no  better  way  than  by  a  city  club  organization.  Of 
course  the  president  and  governing  board  of  such  a  club  must  be  pro- 
gressive picked  men,  elected  to  office  for  a  sufficiently  long  term  to  con- 
ceive and  organize  just  the  right  committees  and  to  take  the  initiative  in 
all  activities. 

"  In  bringing  together  men  of  all  parties,  creeds  and  hobbies,  diplomacy 
in  a  superlative  degree  must  be  used  and  tact  constantly  be  '  on  the 
job.'  I  believe  the  city  club  function  should  be  to  organize  wisely  and 
thoroughly,  but  not  to  execute.  An  important  duty  in  a  large  city  club 
is  to  have  some  one  official  keep  constantly  in  touch  with,  and  feel  the 
pulse  of,  every  group  represented  in  the  membership, 
The  Cementing  and  report  to  an  intelligent  governing  board.  Further, 
of  Groups  to  cement  all  groups  together  this  official  should  see 

that  the  club's  motto  is  not  allowed  to  pass  into  in- 
nocuous desuetude.  In  fact  he  must  be  an  intelligent  mixer,  ready  and 
able  and  willing  to  preside  over  or  discuss  with  a  religious  body,  a  political 
group,  a  literary  group,  a  meeting  of  the  brewers'  association  or  an  edu- 
cational group.  His  acquaintance  must  be  a  large  and  diversified. 

"  City  clubs  organized  and  operated  on  the  lines  of  the  Boston  club 
are  destined,  in  my  mind,  to  accomplish  more  ultimate  good  than  organi- 
zations with  partisan  and  belligerant  policies. 

"  We  have  brought  into  the  City  Club  men  on  opposite  sides  of  a 
good  many  questions,  who  had  been  bitterly  opposed  to  each  other. 
We  have  in  a  good  many  cases  brought  about,  through  the  acquaintance 
that  has  sprung  up  between  those  men,  a  cordiality  of  feeling  and  a 
working  in  unison  that  I  think  could  not  be  accomplished  by  any  other 
method.  Twenty  or  thirty  men  connected  with  the  newspaper  profession ; 
a  good  many  of  those  men  were  not  personally  known  to  each  other ; 
have  formed  a  group  that  meet  every  day  around  a  long  table;  the  same 
thing  occurred  in  a  group  of  judges;  the  same  thing  in  a  group  of  the 


A.  L.  WINSHIP  5I9 

dramatic  and  musical  professions ;  and  out  of  those  groups  have  been 
picked  committees  and  workers  to  take  part  in  the  great  "Boston — 1915" 
movement,  and  in  the  United  Improvement  Association,  an  association 
that  brought  together  some  eighteen  or  twenty  separate  organizations  all 
over  the  city  which  had  been  working  at  cross  purposes  for  years.  The 
idea  of  uniting  them  all  under  one  head  was  born  in  the  City  Club.  Their 
meetings  are  all  held  there.  Groups  in  Dorchester,  Roxbury,  Charlestown, 
South  Boston  and  East  Boston  that  were  working  for  perhaps  the  same 
purpose,  striving  to  get  from  the  mayor  and  from  the  council  appropria- 
tions to  accomplish  certain  things, — perhaps  things  that  overlapped  one 
another, — now  meet  in  the  Boston  City  Club  every  month,  their  sub- 
committees meet  every  week,  and  they  are  working  together  harmoniously. 

"  The  motto  of  our  club  is  that  '  every  member  knows  every  other 
member  without  an  introduction.'  We  have  kept  that  motto  in  life,  it 
has  been  worked  out  in  practice,  so  it  is  unlike  some  other  city  clubs 
that  I  have  known  in  this  country,  where  you  might  go  in  every  day  for 
a  year  and  never  have  a  man  speak  to  you,  never  know  what  you  were 
there  for  or  know  what  he  is  doing  or  what  he  is  there  for.  Through 
carrying  out  the  motto  of  our  organization  we  have  broken  down  a  great 
many  of  the  barriers  that  exist  in  any  city  and  especially  perhaps  in  a 
city  like  Boston. 

"  Within  a  week  the  civic  secretary  of  this  club  has  been  called  into 
three  meetings  that  were  being  held  at  the  same  hour  in  the  various 
rooms  of  the  house;  one  of  those  meetings  was  a  meeting  of  the  alumni 
of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology;  another  was  a  n^eting  of 
clergymen  connected  with  the  American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  and 
another  was  a  meeting  of  the  brewers  and  liquor  dealers  of  Boston,  many 
of  whom  are  members  of  the  club, — for  a  purpose.  The  object  in  asking 
the  secretary  into  these  meetings  was  to  tell  something  of  the  work  that 
the  club  is  trying  to  accomplish.  There  was  furnished  an  audience  of 
at  least  350  men  in  those  various  luncheon  parties  and  out  of  the  350  men 
not  more  than  50  were  members  of  the  club.  The  knowledge  that  they 
obtained  resulted  in  applications  for  membership  in  the  City  Club  of 
some  seventy  men;  but  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  limit  of  the  club 
membership  had  been  reached  they  were  obliged  to  go  upon  the  waiting 
list. 

"  There  are  in  our  organization  representatives  of  almost  every  race  and 
political  party  and  creed  in  the  city  of  Boston.  Boston  is  a  great  cos- 
mopolitan city  and  the  different  nationalities  have  sent  through  our  club, 
into  the  active  work  of  a  lot  of  the  organizations,  some  of  the  brightest 
young  men  in  the  city.  They  are  the  leaders  in  some  of  the  better  civic 
movements.  When  such  men  can  be  brought  together  at  one  dinner,  or 
at  one  time,  and  meet  other  men  who  are  engaged  in  the  same  work,  there 
can  be  nothing  but  good  come  of  it. 

"One  of  the  results  of  the  City  Club's  work  was,  indirectly— perhaps 


520  THE  CIVIC  SECRETARIES'  CONFERENCE 

directly — the  adoption  of  the  new  charter.  Another  result  is  the  growing 
sentiment  for  a  better  organization  of  the  public  works  of  the  city.  Mr. 
Louis  K.  Rourke  had  not  been  in  office  more  than  a  month  before  he  in- 
troduced an  ordinance  to  consolidate  the  highway,  sewer,  water  and 
engineering  boards  of  the  city  into  one  department,  the  department  of 
public  works.  He  has  taken  an  entirely  fearless  stand  in  that  position. 
The  progress  that  he  is  making  in  his  campaign  of  education  is  being 
worked  out  in  the  club  by  a  series  of  meetings.  He  is  meeting  there  rep- 
resentatives of  the  chamber  of  commerce,  representatives  of  different 
groups  of  our  own  members,  some  200  or  250  at  a  time.  Whether  his 
policy  meets  with  the  entire  approval  of  the  present  mayor  of  Boston  is 
something  of  an  unknown  quantity.  Apparently  it  does  meet  with  his 
approval,  but  the  general  opinion  is  that  perhaps  Mr.  Rourke  is  going  a 
little  further  in  his  methods  of  overcoming  the  evils  that  have  existed 
than  the  present  mayor  really  intended  or  expected.  Nevertheless  he  is 
getting  and  will  have  the  support  of  the  various  civic  organizations.  The 
support  that  is  being  given  him  was  born  and  was  carried  out  by  the  City 
Club.  In  doing  all  this  work  the  City  Club  has  never  yet,  through  the 
diplomacy  of  its  first  president  and  its  present  president,  made  any  local 
rows  or  squabbles  that  have  been  at  all  to  its  discredit." 

DR.  J.  GEORGE  ADAMI,  President  of  the  Montreal  Civic  Improvement 
League:  We  found  a  great  number  of  organizations  already  in  the  field. 
These  were  the  charity  organization  society,  the  national  council  of 
women,  which  is  doing  very  active  work  in  connection  with  women  and 

children,  their  protection  and  advance,  the  parks  and 
A  Federation  Of  playgrounds  committee,  a  new  temperance  league, — 
Associations  a  very  large  number  of  these  bodies,  each  working 

hard.  We  recognized  they  were  overlapping,  so  we 
started  our  improvement  scheme  practically  in  order  to  be  a  link  to  bring 
the  others  together  so  that  they  might  get  to  know  each  other.  If  a  so- 
ciety brings  forward  a  plan, — for  instance,  housing, — that  is  for  the 
good  of  the  city,  we  do  not  attempt  to  take  it  out  of  their  hands,  rather 
we  attempt  to  back  them,  give  them  means  of  getting  larger  audiences  to- 
gether, so  that  when  one  organization  goes  to  the  council  with  a  petition, 
it  is  backed  by  the  whole  league  and  goes  before  the  council  with  the 
endorsement  of  all  those  who  are  interested  in  the  betterment  of  the  city. 
That  is  our  main  plan,  and  it  is  working  well.  As  certain  difficulties  that 
I  hear  mentioned  arise,  if  the  matter  has  not  been  taken  up  by  any  of 
these  organizations,  then  we  as  a  Municipal  Improvement  League  form 
a  branch  which  looks  after  it.  In  doing  this,  of  course,  we  have  occasion- 
ally a  little  bit  of  jealousy  from  other  smaller  local  associations.  On  the 
whole  the  work  that  has  been  done  is  so  marked  that  a  matter  of  rivalry  or 
local  feeling  from  the  central  organization  is  of  no  importance  and  we 
can  pass  it  by.  The  association  of  the  various  betterment  societies  is 
materially  improving  the  city  condition. 


DR.  J.  GEORGE  ADAMI 


521 


The  difficulty  in  connection  with  this  is  the  matter  of  funds.  We  are, 
a  society  society,  having  practically  the  leading  members  of  each  society 
on  our  board  and  council.  We  permit  these  various  societies  still  to  re- 
tain their  membership  and  continue  their  subscriptions.  Gradually  we  are 
getting  the  main  body  of  citizens  interested  in  these  subsidiary  bodies  to 
give  us  a  small  subscription,  our  idea  being  to  have  the  subscription  so 
small  that  any  man,  even  a  laboring  man,  can  join, — two  dollars  a  year, — 
and  that  we  find  slowly  bringing  about  its  purpose.  But  we  have  to  let 
the  individual  societies  get  the  larger  subscriptions.  The  plan  is  working 
well  though  it  isn't  perfect. 

We  have  another  very  difficult  problem  to  deal  with,  a  community 
which  is  one-third  English  Protestant  and  two-thirds  Roman  Catholic. 
Broadly  speaking,  our  main  object  is  to  get  those  two  bodies  together. 
In  Montreal  we  have  these  widely  different  communities  living  together, 
so  we  could  hardly  get  up  a  city  club  along  the  lines  of  Boston.  Our 
line  is  rather  that  of  getting  the  leaders  of  the  various  organizations  to 
know  each  other,  to  appreciate  each  other  and  to  work  in  harmony.  It 
is  not  difference  of  religion,  but  difference  of  language  that  is  the 
stumbling  block.  For  instance,  in  the  matter  of  the  city  planning;  we 
have  to  arrange  to  have  double  meetings,  a  meeting  for  French  citizens, 
a  meeting  for  English  citizens,  and  very  carefully  select  our  speakers  so 
that  they  will  appeal  to  one  or  other.  At  our  council  meetings  of  the 
Improvement  League,  the  leaders  of  course  know  two  languages  thoroughly 
and  we  can  hammer  at  the  points  of  divergence  and  importance  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  two  races  perfectly  easily,  being  a  small  number. 
We  frequently  have  a  preliminary  harmonization  of  divergencies  of 
views.  This  council  meeting  works  well. 

MR.  MAYO  FESLER:  Most  of  us,  of  course,  have  thought  over  these 
questions  at  great  length  and  very  frequently.  The  question  that  came 
to  me,  as  I  read  Mr.  Winship's  paper  was  how  far  can  these  organiza- 
tions be  thrown  off  from  the  central  organization  and  yet  maintain 
themselves  permanently?  Mr.  Winship,  I  think,  made  this  as  his  general 
proposition :  Here  is  the  large  central  organization — when  there  is  a  need 
for  a  housing  movement  or  a  short-ballot  movement,  those  movements 
will  be  organized  and  will  swing  off  from  the  central  organization,  se- 
cure their  own  membership,  select  their  own  secretaries,  get  the  backing 
and  assistance  of  the  right  men,  and  go  to  work.  My  experience  has 
been  that  you  cannot  get  the  financial  support  for  so  many  different 
movements.  Boston,  it  seems,  has  been  able  to  do  that.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve we  could  have  done  it  in  St.  Louis.  We  did  not  try  it,  because  we 
adopted  the  policy  of  centralizing  the  work,  but  I  do  not  believe  it  could 
have  been  done,  even  if  we  had  tried,  with  all  of  the  other  interests, 
charitable  and  so  on,  that  are  asking  for  support. 

Another  difficulty  is  that  you  have  to  call  upon  somewhat  the  same 


522  THE  CIVIC  SECRETARIES'  CONFERENCE 

men,  unless  the  experience  of  the  other  men  in  the  other  cities  has  been 
entirely  different  from  mine.  There  is  always  the 
The  Leadership  same  small  group  of  men  who  may  be  led  into  these 
of  the  Central  movements  and  induced  to  lead  in  them.  Of  course, 
Body  Mr.  Winship  makes  a  good  point  there,  that  in  getting 

a  thousand  men  around  the  table  at  a  city  club  every 
day  you  find  a  lot  of  men  who  will  work,  who  have  not  been  called  upon 
before,  but  who  are  willing  to  help  in  these  new  movements.  My  own 
impression  is  that  the  Boston  plan,  that  of  swinging  off  these  various 
movements  from  the  central  body,  is  going  to  mean  a  lot  of  temporary 
organizations,  with  little  vitality,  which  will  soon  exhaust  themselves,  and 
the  main  work  will  have  to  come  back  to  the  central  organization  after  all. 

We,  in  the  central  west,  have  had  some  experience,  I  think  probably 
most  of  you  have  had,  in  the  last  two  or  three  years,  with  the  effort, 
particularly  from  New  York,  of  the  various  national  organizations,  to 
organize  branches  in  every  city.  I  recall  Mr.  Veiller's  desire  to  organize 
a  housing  association  in  St.  Louis  last  spring.  He  was  very  anxious  to 
have  it  organized.  I  said,  "  It  is  not  practicable.  We  have  enough  trouble 
here  to  keep  the  Civic  League  going  without  organizing  branch  or- 
ganizations." Another  national  association  that  is  coming  into  the  local 
field  is  the  Short-Ballot  Organization,  the  objects  of  which  can,  in  my 
opinion,  be  as  effectively  promoted  by  some  already  existing  organization ; 
it  can,  I  am  sure,  be  promoted  by  the  Civic  League  of  St.  Louis,  the  or- 
ganization with  which  .1  have  been  most  familiar.  Now  Mr.  Goodwin 
very  gladly  co-operates  with  any  local  organization  for  the  promotion 
of  the  merit  system ;  in  fact  it  was  his  support  that  enabled  the  Civic 
League  to  present  as  good  a  report  and  lend  as  active  a  hand  to  the  civil 
service  movement  in  St.  Louis,  as  we  did. 

The  point  I  am  trying  to  make  is  this :  that  for  permanent  civic  work 
it  is  better  to  have  a  central  organization  and  committees  under  the 
central  organization,  for  the  reason  that  you  can  raise  the  money  more 
easily  and  you  can  always  have  the  force  of  the  larger  organization  back 
of  the  particular  work.  Of  course,  there  are  certain  difficulties  in  this 
plan.  If  the  organization  is  criticised  in  one  line  it  will  hurt  its  work  in 
another.  But  that  difficulty  is  not  as  serious  as  the  very  practical  issue 
of  getting  funds  to  maintain  the  various  organizations  whose  combined, 
maintenance  cost  must  necessarily  be  more  than  the  expenses  of  one 
central  body. 

How  far  this  centralization  can  go  is  another  question.  Can  all  of 
these  civic  movements  be  combined  under  one  big  commercial  organiza- 
tion, such  as  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  Cleveland,  which  does  not  only 
the  commercial  work  of  the  city  but  a  great  deal  of  civic  work?  If  you 
will  pardon  a  reference  to  the  organization  of  which  I  have  recently 
become  secretary,  the  Municipal  Association  of  Cleveland, — the  feeling 
in  Cleveland  is  that  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  while  it  is  doing  splendid 


MAYO  FESLER  523 

work  and  doing  very  broad  work,  probably  broader  work  than  any  other 
commercial  organization  in  the  country,  yet  there  is  a  distinct  field  which 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce  does  not  cover  and  which  it  can  not  cover. 
For  that  reason,  the  members  of  the  Municipal  Association  want  to  build 
up  that  organization,  broaden  its  field  of  work  and  make  it  a  stronger 
force  in  the  community.  I  have  not  been  there  long  enough  to  deter- 
mine in  my  own  mind  whether  their  interpretation  is  correct  or  not. 
but  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  there  is  a  distinct  field  for  the  Municipal 
Association,  which  is  not  dominated  by  commercial  influences. 

THE  CHAIRMAN:  How  would  you  say  then  that  the  strictly  municipal 
organization  should  be  differentiated  from  the  commercial?  The  Cleve- 
land Chamber  of  Commerce  has  done  a  great  deal  of  this  civic  work,  yet 
they  have  felt  in  Cleveland  the  need  of  another  organization.  Will  you 
draw  the  line  between  the  two?  Why  is  it  that  the  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce has  not  met  the  need  fully? 

MR.  FESLER:  I  am  not  speaking  from  personal  experience;  simply  stat- 
ing the  opinions  expressed  to  me  by  the  men  with  whom  I  have  talked, 
both  in  the  Chamber  and  outside.  The  feeling  seems 
The  Cleveland  to  be,  on  the  part  of  many,  that  a  chamber  of  corn- 
Chamber  of  merce,  composed  primarily  of  business  men,  does  not 
Commerce  give  sufficient  attention  to  the  value  of  free  open 
public  discussion  of  municipal  questions.  They  do  not 
stop  to  discuss  with  every  possible  type  of  citizen  the  questions  at  issue. 
The  business  man  is  inclined  to  rush  ahead  and  do  things.  He  does  not 
believe  in  opening  the  subject  to  any  considerable  amount  of  discussion, 
but  gets  a  committee  in  a  small  room,  draws  up  the  conclusions  of  the 
committee,  submits  them  to  a  small  board  of  directors,  issues  them  as  the 
opinion  of  the  Chamber,  and  seeks  to  have  them  enforced.  That  is  the  most 
natural  method  of  procedure,  because  the  big  business  men,  who  are  the 
leaders  in  the  community  and  with  whom  the  best  ideas  most  often  origin- 
ate, work  that  way  in  their  own  private  affairs. 

Furthermore  there  is  always  the  criticism  that  the  commercial  organi- 
zation represents  the  moneyed  interests  including  the  public  service  cor- 
poration, and,  as  a  result,  is  biased  in  their  favor. 

The  Municipal  Association  is  not  affected  by  these  commercial  in- 
fluences and  can  take  up  many  problems  with  which  the  commercial  or- 
ganization can  not  grapple,  because  of  arousing  too  much  antagonism  on 
the  part  of  its  membership. 

The    difficulties    experienced    in    financing    autonomous    committees    as 

in    St.   Louis   and  in   financing  the   central   organization    as   in   the   case 

of  Montreal  led  to  a  series  of  questions  directed  at 

Membership  Mr.   Winship   whose  organization   apparently   has   no 

and  Finance  such  difficulties.     He  first  replied  to  an  argument  that 

a    small    number    of    men    support    civic    movements. 

"  That  was  one  reason  why  the  Boston  City  Club  was  established.     In  the 


524  THE  CIVIC  SECRETARIES'  CONFERENCE 

years  before  you  would  always  see  the  same  names  attached  to  every 
movement.  The  City  Club  brought  out  a  great  deal  larger  group  from 
which  to  select  men.  It  brought  new  men  to  the  foreground,  so  you  will 
see  some  of  the  older  men  in  the  association  dropping  out  and  giving 
place  to  new  men  of  greater  activity. 

"Another  question  raised  was  that  of  financing  these  various  things 
that  come  up,  the  speaker  thought  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  financial 
aid  for  these  various  propositions.  In  the  primary  meeting,  getting  the 
men  together  and  forming  committees,  the  Boston  City  Club  assumes 
the  expense  of  the  necessary  maintenance  and  dinners.  It  is  able  to  do 
so  because  as  an  organization  in  the  five  years  of  its  existence  it  has 
averaged  a  surplus  of  from  fifteen  to  twenty-six  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
Then  through  the  bringing  of  these  men  together,  forming  these  com- 
mittees, we  find  the  men  out  of  the  larger  group,  not  the  same  small  group, 
who  are  ready  and  willing  to  finance  the  smaller  and  separate  lines. 

In  answer  to  a  question  by  Mr.  Baldwin,  of  the  St.  Louis  Civic  League, 
as  to  how  many  of  the  organizations  represented  included  women  in  their 
membership,  three  or  four  delegates  raised  their  hands. 
Work  of  Women  In  answer  to  a  second  question  as  to  whether  any  of 
Members  the  organizations  with  women  members  concern  them- 

selves with  the  qualifications  of  candidates  for  public 
office  only  one  delegate  replied  in  the  affirmative.  Mr.  Hull,  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Taxpayers  Association  sought  in  vain  to  learn  what  work  the  wo- 
men in  the  other  organizations  are  doing.  "  One  of  our  women  members 
once  asked  me  what  they  could  do.  I  confessed  I  was  stumped.  Finally 
I  suggested  that  they  ride  around  East  Cambridge,  inspect  the  dirty  streets 
— not  their  own  streets,  which  are  clean,  but  those  on  which  the  poor  live 
— and  make  it  their  business  to  get  these  cleaned.  But  that  did  not  ap- 
peal to  them." 

The  question  of  endorsing  candidates  led  to  a  spirited  discussion.  The 
representatives  of  organizations  devoted  to  this  purpose  declared  that  they 
had  exerted  a  very  considerable  influence  in  the  selection  of  officeholders. 
Mr.  Melvin  P.  Porter  of  the  Buffalo  Municipal  League  said  that  during 
the  campaign  just  closed  his  organization  had  secured 
Endorsement  Of  the  election  of  men,  irrespective  of  party,  who  are 
Candidates  and  better  representatives  of  the  people  than  their  oppon- 
Measures  ents.  Mr.  Stiles  P.  Jones  of  the  Minneapolis  Voters 

League  said  that  the  work  of  his  organization  in  pub- 
lishing the  records  of  dishonest  officials  had  driven  many  corrupt  men 
out  of  office.  Mr.  Anthony  Pratt  of  the  Detroit  Municipal  League  said 
that  while  it  had  not  succeeded  in  defeating  the  men  it  opposed,  yet  it 
had  forced  those  men  to  reform  their  methods. 

The  majority  of  the  delegates,  however,  seemed  to  feel  that  the 
"  militant "  organizations  could  not  bring  about  fundamental  or  lasting 
improvements.  Several  instances  were  given  where  such  organizations 


MILITANT  ORGANIZATIONS 


525 


had  gradually  lost  influence  until  they  finally  dissolved,  or,  by  adopting 
a  constructive  policy,  made  a  different  appeal  to  the  community  and  so 
entered  upon  a  new  life  .  Mr.  Hull  told  the  story  of  the  Good  Govern- 
ment League  of  Cambridge  which  has  been  succeeded  by  the  Taxpayers 
Association.  The  latter,  by  its  constitution,  is  permitted  to  endorse  can- 
didates. But  both  the  executive  committee  and  the  membership  at  the 
last  annual  meeting  voted  against  endorsement  as  the  association  is 
chiefly  interested  in  constructive  measures  such  as  the  creation  of  the 
new  highway  commission  and  the  laying  out  of  a  scientific  street  plan, 
for  which  it  has  employed  a  well  known  engineer.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  secure  the  co-operation  in  such  work  of  officeholders  whom  it  had 
opposed.  Even  more  important  than  this  would  be  the  questioning  of  its 
motives  by  the  community  if  the  organization,  having  seen  its  candi- 
dates defeated,  sought  to  secure  better  methods  of  administration  or  the 
adoption  of  progressive  policies  by  triumphant  opponents.  The  result 
might  be  that  the  association  would  become  a  mere  partisan  organization 
dependent  for  results  upon  getting  its  friends  into  office. 

Mr.  Jones  admitted  that  the  Minneapolis  Voters  League  makes  no  at- 
tempt to  further  a  constructive  program.  Mr.  Charles  Sumner,  of  the 
Kansas  City,  (Mo.)  City  Club,  spoke  of  the  old  Civic  League  which  had 
endeavored  to  influence  the  selection  of  officials  and  its  failure.  If  a 
matter  could  be  made  a  party  measure  it  went  through  and  officials  en- 
dorsed by  the  league  voted  for  it  with  officials  opposed  by  the  league.  So 
the  City  Club  has  decided  to  devote  its  attention  to  measures  and  to 
working  out  a  program  of  constructive  legislation.  It  took  an  active  part 
in  the  fight  against  the  proposed  street-car  franchise  which  was  defeated 
last  spring;  and  though  it  lost  two  hundred  members  because  of  its  stand, 
it  is  now  stronger  than  ever. 

The  use  of  public  buildings  for  free  discussion  of  all  matters  of  public 
interest  came  up  several  times  during  the  meeting.  One  of  the  most  im- 
portant services  rendered  by  the  Boston  City  Club  is  admittedly  through 
discussions  held  in  its  auditorium,  which  has  a  seating 
Use  Of  Public  capacity  of  800.  Here  city  officials  and  citizens  present 

Buildings  both  sides  of  every  question  before  the  people  and 

though  the  club  as  a  club  never  takes  a  formal  stand 
on  one  side  or  the  other,  the  free  discussion  enlightens  public  opinion 
and  gives  the  other  organizations  to  which  the  club  members  belong 
information  of  the  greatest  value. 

Mr.  Edward  J.  Ward,  through  his  work  in  the  Rochester  school  civic 
centers  and  now  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  has  had  long  experience 
in  seeking  to  secure  the  wider  use  of  public  buildings.  He  led  the  discussion. 

"  Let  me  take  as  a  starting  point  a  conversation  that  I  had  in  the 
Boston  City  Club  with  Mr.  Lincoln  Steffens.  I  had  been  boasting  about 
the  development  of  the  civic  organizations  in  Rochester  and  urging  Mr. 
Steffens  to  come  on  to  Rochester  to  speak  before  one  of  the  neighborhood 


526  THE  CIVIC  SECRETARIES'  CONFERENCE 

civic  clubs.  Then  Steffens  spoke  of  the  Boston  City  Club  and  said :  '  Xow 
I  guess  this  will  fork  up  your  Rochester  talk  because  they  haven't  done 
anything  that  will  compare  with  this.'  I  said,  '  No,  but  what  we  are 
working  toward  is  very  much  finer  than  this  because  this  really  isn't  a  city 
club,  a  selected  organization  of  people  who  are  thought  to  be  qualified,  by  a 
group  who  constitute  themselves  the  selectors.  What  we  are  going  to 
have  is  a  city  club  in  which  the  people  of  the  city  will  be  members  by 
virtue  of  their  membership  in  the  city,  in  which  the  city  hall,  with  its 
municipal  banqueting  hall  and  gathering  place  will  be  the  club  house,  and 
we  are  going  to  develop  a  civic  spirit,  through  association  in  the  munici- 
pal machinery,  instead  of  duplicating  it  by  having  a  group  who  simply 
give  part  of  their  time  to  public  questions.'  Steffens  paused  for  a  minute 
and  then  said,  '  Don't  forget  the  municipal  banqueting  hall.  You  know 
the  stomach  isn't  very  far  from  the  heart  and  I  doubt  whether  you  will 
ever  get  the  true  spirit  of  interest  in  the  city,  the  true  devotion  and  the 
.true  good  feeling  toward  members  of  one's  city,  within  the  city,  except 
as  you  have  that  municipal  banqueting  hall.  You  get  that  into  the  city 
hall,  get  the  mayor  as  toastmaster,  get  the  people  gathering  there  to  wel- 
come the  city's  guests  and  to  discuss  public  questions  over  a  board  as 
they  do  in  many  of  the  city  clubs  and  I  believe  you  will  have  something 
better.'  That  sounds  ideal,  it  sounds  up  in  the  air,  but  that  is  the 
ideal  toward  which  we  are  working  in  Wisconsin, — the  idea  of  developing 
the  consciousness  of  community  membership,  not  to  organize  separate 
associations  and  use  new  buildings,  but  to  use  the  buildings  which  already 
belong  to  the  people,  from  the  city  hall  to  the  school  houses,  as  club 

houses.  The  city  of  Milwaukee  is  particularly  favor- 
A  Municipal  able  to  that  sort  of  development  with  the  administra- 

Service  Institute  tion  that  is  now  in  office,  which  welcomes  investigation 

along  all  lines  and  which  welcomes  the  largest  use  not 
only  of  other  public  buildings  but  of  the  city  hall.  The  common  council 
chamber  is  used  every  night  in  the  week  out  there  as  the  center  for  the 
Municipal  and  Social  Service  Institute,  which  takes  up  problems  of  im- 
provement along  all  sorts  of  lines. 

"  The  institute  is  the  product  of  a  co-operation  which  is  quite  wonder- 
ful as  indicating  the  excellent  feeling  toward  the  administration  of  the 
city.  Three  thousand  dollars  was  put  into  the  hands  of  the  mayor  by  a 
person  whose  name  is  not  supposed  to  be  known, — who  is  not  a  socialist, — 
to  be  used  for  the  investigation  of  social  and  municipal  problems.  The 
mayor,  instead  of  saying  '  This  is  a  fine  chance  to  propagate  socialism, — 
we'll  form  a  committee  of  socialists  and  use  this  $3,000  to  teach  social- 
ism in  Milwaukee  and  out  through  the  country,'  went  up  to  the  University 
of  Wisconsin  and  said  to  Dean  Reper,  the  head  of  the  extension  depart- 
ment, '  Here's  this  money,  here's  the  building  that  may  be  .used,  here's  a 
city  that  may  be  studied, — you  direct  the  organization  of  this  institute, 
let  it  be  under  the  auspices  of  the  university;  we'll  put  the  city  at  the  dis- 


EDWARD  J.  WARD  527 

posal  of  the  university,  as  a  laboratory,  we'll  make  every  extension  of 
its  service  possible,  but  we  would  rather  that  it  should  be  conducted  in  an 
entirely  non-partisan  way,  by  the  university,  than  to  have  it  controlled 
in  the  slightest  degree  by  the  administration.' 

"  So  that  institute,  which  is  running  all  through  this  winter  takes  up 
the  whole  field  of  philanthropic,  social,  educational,  recreational  activity 
and  also  the  methods  of  dealing  with  the  various  public  municipal  prob- 
lems. The  money  is  furnished  by  a  capitalist ;  it  is  given  to  the  socialist 
mayor;  it  is  turned  over  by  him  to  a  non-partisan  university;  and  the  city 
hall  is  the  place  where  people  gather  for  those  institute  meetings,  after- 
noons and  evenings. 

"  The  question  of  the  relation  between  such  a  civic  organization  and 
the  government  is  most  easily  answered.  It  is  the  government.  The 
duty  and  the  aim  of  work  on  that  line  is  to  develop  the  consciousness  of 
democracy,  the  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the  government  of  the 
people,  who  are  the  government.  There  went  to  a  second  reading  in  the 
Republican  convention  and  it  was  cut  out  only  because  the  platform  was 
too  long,  a  declaration  that  the  people  anywhere  in  Wisconsin  had  the 
right  to  use  their  public  buildings,  in  so  far  as  their  use  did  not  interfere 
with  the  prime  use;  as  meeting  places  for  the  discussion  of  public  ques- 
tions,— the  free  and  gratuitous  use.  Such  gatherings  in  public  buildings 
would  have  the  right  to  call  upon  public  servants  to  report  upon  the 
condition  of  their  office;  they  would  have  the  further  right  to  call  upon 
representatives  of  public  service  corporations  to  report  upon  the  service 
that  they  are  rendering  to  the  community. 

"  There  is  splendid  work  done  by  civic  organizations,  whose  leader  in 
many  ways  is  the  Boston  City  Club,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  great 
thing  that  we  ought  to  strive  for  is  not  good  govern- 
Self-Government  ment,  but  self  government,  the  awakening  of  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  last  man  in  the  community.  So 
we  have  gone  on  the  idea  in  Milwaukee,  and  in  cities  in  other  parts  of 
the  state, — that  in  this  new  civic  association  every  man  in  the  community 
is  a  member;  he  may  be  an  unconscious  member, — we  want  to  wake  him 
up ;  he  may  be  a  passive  member, — we  want  to  make  him  active.  We  want 
to  put  up  to  every  man  and  ultimately  every  woman  the  idea  that  as  a 
member  of  society,  as  a  member  of  the  city,  as  a  member  of  the  com- 
munity, they  have  certain  responsibilities  and  that  these  things  are  not 
to  be  taken  care  of  by  others,  by  any  groups. 

"  It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  there  should  be  a  preparation  of  the 
soil  as  well  as  a  selection  of  the  seed, — that  there  should  be  a  common 
civic  intelligence.  And  I  feel  that  while  the  work  of  the  chambers  of 
commerce  and  the  work  of  the  special  civic  bodies,  legislative  and  voters' 
leagues,  and  so  on,  are  all  desirable,  the  great  fundamental  thing  to  aim 
at  is  the  organization  of  the  citizenship  into  a  conscious  democracy." 

But  with  all  this  as  an  ideal,  an  ideal  perhaps  possible  of  realization 


528  THE  CIVIC  SECRETARIES'  CONFERENCE 

in  Milwaukee  and  Wisconsin,  Mr.  Ward  admitted  the  necessity  of  volun- 
teer associations  in  other  cities  where  the  administration  or  public  sen- 
timent is  not  favorably  inclined  toward  the  free  use  of  public  buildings. 
Then,  he  said,  the  first  thing  that  must  be  done  is  to  declare  and  acquire 
the  right  of  the  people  in  any  community  to  freedom  of  discussion  of 
politics  and  everything  else  in  their  own  buildings. 
Freedom  of  That  right  does  not  exist  in  the  majority  of  the 

Discussion  American   cities.     The  right  to  the  use  of  the  build- 

ings must  be  gained,  and  that  first.  And  I  know  that 
in  very  many  cities, — in  Indianapolis,  for  instance,  and  Minneapolis  and 
here  in  Buffalo  that  is  one  of  the  objects  toward  which  civic  associations 
of  various  kinds  are  working,  the  establishment  of  that  right.  Then  the 
next  step  which  it  seems  to  me  will  lead  on  toward  the  valuable  use  of 
public  property  as  meeting  places  is  the  securing  of  a  list  of  speakers,  a 
list  of  people  in  public  office,  and  people  who  are  capable  of  speaking  in- 
telligently upon  public  questions,  who  will  give  up  their  time  to  address 
neighborhood  civic  organizations  upon  public  questions  and  who  will 
debate,  who  will  speak  on  all  sorts  of  questions  interestingly  and  so  will 
make  the  programs  of  these  bodies  intelligent.  But  the  basis  of  it  all  and 
the  ultimate  control  of  it  all  is  in  the  people  and  the  hope  there  is  in  the 
developing  of  the  consciousness  that  they  are  the  government.  "  The 
practical  working  out  of  this  will  come  in  different  ways.  In  the  city 
of  Milwaukee  we  have  had  absolutely  no  appropriation  for  equipment  of 
any  kind,  and  it  has  simply  come  about  by  the  action  of  the  existing 
federation,  civic  societies,  going  up  to  the  university  and  saying  '  We  want 
this  sort  of  thing  developed,  we  want  you  to  help  us.'  The  request  came 
from  other  neighborhoods  throughout  the  state  also,  so  the  university 
entered  upon  the  work." 

MR.  JONES,  of  the  Minneapolis  Voters  League  endorsed  what  Mr.  Ward 
had  said  and  added:  "  We  have  just  had  a  notable  election  in  Minneapolis, 

notable  in  many  ways,  notable  for  the  tremendous  up- 
The  Uprising  in  rising  of  the  people  behind  a  socialist  candidate  who 
Minneapolis  was  barely  nosed  out,  without  any  glimmering  of  the 

fact  that  such  a  result  was  coming,  but  notable  also  for 
the  election  of  a  woman  to  the  school  board,  as  a  reformer.  As  a  result 
there  are  half  a  dozen  schools  with  large  auditoriums  to  be  thrown  open 
for  all  kinds  of  municipal  uses, — social,  political,  civic.  All  new  build- 
ings will  be  equipped  with  auditoriums  and  they  also  will  be  thrown  open ; 
the  probability  is  that  those  schools  will  be  equipped  as  polling  places 
at  elections. 

In  most  of  the  wards  in  Minneapolis  we  have  been  unable  to  hold 
meetings  for  the  discussion  of  political  problems,  for  the  discussion  of 
a  bad  alderman's  record  or  a  good  alderman's  record  or  the  discussion 
of  a  bad  mayor's  record  or  a  good  mayor's  record.  We  have  been  un- 
able to  get  the  facts  before  the  people,  for  the  lack  of  meeting  places. 


THE  PITTSBURGH  PLAN 


529 


Where  there  was  a  place  somebody  would  get  in  a  year  ahead  and  hire  it 
for  a  week  or  two,  in  order  to  nose  somebody  else  out.  So  we  have  been 
without  meeting  places,  without  the  means  of  educating  the  people  politi- 
cally. Now  we  are  going  to  use  the  school  house.  Every  ward  in  the 
city  of  Minneapolis  will  have  a  forum  for  the  discussion  of  all  kinds  of 
topics  and  we  believe  we  are  going  to  educate  the  people  civicly,  politi- 
cally, socially.  We  militant  reformers  have  come  to  the  same  conclusion 
as  Mr.  Burns  of  Pittsburgh,  that  good  government  is  not  so  much 
what  we  need  as  self-government." 

Mr.  Ewing,  of  the  Pittsburgh  Civic  Commission  told  of  a  method  of 
reaching  the  people  devised  by  his  organization. 

"The  point  made  of  the  difficulty  of  reaching  the  people  themselves 
has  struck  us  all,  and  while  I  do  not  feel  qualified  to  speak  for  my  chief, 
Mr.  Burns,  I  think  it  may  interest  you  to  know  the 
The  Pittsburgh  way  the  Pittsburgh  Civic  association  has  tried  to  work 
Plan  that  out.  We  cannot  work  through  the  schools. 

So  we  tried  a  different  way  by  getting  ward  chair- 
men, carefully  picked,  and  then  in  each  ward  getting  a  carefully  selected 
body  of  ten  men  who  should  be  representative  of  the  working  men,  the 
business  men,  Catholics,  Protestants,  Jews,  Italians,  and  other  foreigners. 
In  that  way  we  got  our  organization  about  completed  just  before  the 
Roosevelt  meeting  on  September  loth.  Then  we  plunged  right  into  a 
political  campaign. 

"  We  do  not  endorse  candidates,  but  we  do  endorse  policies.  The 
bond  issue  was  a  policy  and  we  have  discovered  that  it  split  us  up  almost 
as  badly  as  would  the  endorsement  of  candidates.  You  have  heard  from 
two  or  three  gentlemen  who  have  been  so  fortunate  to  be  on  the  right 
side  of  some  of  these  elections.  As  soon  as  we  have  recovered  a  little 
we  will  tell  you  how  it  is  to  be  on  the  wrong  side.  But  we  did  carry 
eight  wards  of  the  city,  on  a  very  difficult  split  ballot.  There  were  eight 
items  voted  and  a  ten-million-dollar  issue ;  we  endorsed  only  three  items 
because  the  money  couldn't  be  stolen.  But  they  all  went  through,  though 
our  three  went  through  with  the  biggest  majority,  showing  the  effect 
of  our  endorsement.  We  are  getting  letters  from  all  classes  of  citizens 
congratulating  us.  We  have  great  faith  in  this  new  ward  organization. 
We  don't  control  it.  We  have  men  of  a  class  that  we  cannot  control, 
that  is,  we  couldn't  tell  them  what  to  do.  We  have  picked  them  from 
men  of  open  mind  and  submit  questions  for  their  vote. 

The  Kansas  City,  Mo.  City  Club  is  following  the  Rochester  instead 
of  the  Pittsburgh  plan  in  trying  to  get  at  the  people.  "  We  have,"  said 
Mr.  Sumner,  "  a  university  extension  society  which 
Kansas  City's  invited  Prof.  Zueblin  to  lecture  to  us.  He  happened 
Experience  to  mention  that  a  three-cent  car  fare  might  be  a  rea- 

sonable fare,  and  the  "  kept "  newspapers  immediately 
called  upon  the  school  board  to  prevent  the  use  of  the  building  for  Prof. 
Zueblin's  lecture.  The  board  did  so. 


530  THE  CIVIC  SECRETARIES'  CONFERENCE 

"  The  president  of  the  Society  for  the  Friendless  sought  permission 
to  use  the  school  building ;  the  school  board  said  '  We  haven't  any  ob- 
jection at  all  to  letting  you  have  the  use  of  this  school  auditorium  but 
there  is  another  committee  tonight  going  to  ask  for  the  use  of  the  school 
and  we  feel  we  haven't  any  right  to  let  anybody  use  it.'  One  of  the 
members  of  our  little  committee  was  Judge  McCune  who  was  one  of 
the  vice-presidents  of  the  National  Municipal  League.  We  created  such 
a  stir  that  a  vacancy  occurring  in  the  school  board,  he  was  selected  to 
fill  it.  Immediately  the  leaven  began  to  work.  This  year,  without  any 
change  of  the  laws,  they  are  opening  the  school  buildings,  they  are  having 
night  schools,  they  are  discussing  trade  schools.  Without  changing  the 
law  they  are  permitting  the  use  of  the  public  library  building  for  various 
societies;  they  are  going  to  let  anybody  who  can  show  that  he  isn't  an 
anarchist,  or,  perhaps,  a  socialist,  have  the  use  of  the  high  school  building. 
And  I  noticed  the  other  day  they  are  letting  a  Sunday-school  occupy  a 
school  building  outside  of  the  city." 

As  the  hour  for  adjournment  had  come  the  chairman  called  on  Mr. 
Goodwin  of  the  Civil  Service  Reform  League  to  sum  up  the  discussion. 
Mr.  Goodwin  devoted  his  attention  chiefly  to  the  most 
One  Organization  effective  form  of  organization,  by  one  large  central 
or  Several  ?  association  acting  through  committees  or  by  separate 

organizations  each  confined  to  one  particular  pur- 
pose. As  he  had  been  appealed  to  by  Mr.  Fesler  as  one  who  approved 
of  the  single  large  organization  his  explanation  was  received  with  con- 
siderable interest.  "  From  one  point  of  view,"  he  declared,  "  I  welcome 
the  consideration  of  the  various  civic  activities  under  one  leadership.  It 
means  a  great  economy,  a  great  saving  of  energy.  Where  you  have  differ- 
ent organizations  as  we  have  in  New  York  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the 
duplication  of  work,  as  to  the  waste  of  funds,  drawing  very  largely,  as 
someone  pointed  out,  from  the  same  people,  who  appear  in  different 
capacities, — charitable,  civic  and  social.  On  the  other  hand,  from  my 
point  of  view  as  a  civil  service  reformer  I  will  say  frankly  that  I  would 
not  be  willing,  working  in  New  York  City,  to  go  in  and  bind  myself  even 
as  one  of  a  committee  in  any  general  organization.  I  am  perfectly  will- 
ing to  consult  and  co-operate  to  the  extent  of  my  power — I  am  a  member 
of  many  other  organizations — but  as  far  as  concerns  our  local  situation 
there  regarding  civil  service  reform,  in  a  large  city  which  contains  a 
political  organization  known  as  Tammany  Hall,  I  want  to  have  an  or- 
ganization that  is  directed  simply  and  solely  to  upholding  the  civil  service 
law.  Again,  I  am  very  glad  as  a  secretary  to  have  my  field  so  narrow. 
It  is  a  field  I  believe  in  thoroughly. 

"  Working  in  connection  with  the  City  Club,  I  have  realized  some  of  the 
difficulties  that  a  secretary  of  a  general  civic  association  is  up  against. 
I  served  for  some  years  on  the  municipal  affairs  committee  of  the  City 
Club  in  New  York  and  I  remember  during  one  year,  under  able  leader- 


ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN 


531 


ship,  we  investigated  the  entire  police  department  in  the  City  of  New 
York,  looked  into  the  subject  of  street  cleaning  in  the  City  of  New  York, 
built  a  monument  to  the  Tombs  Angel  and  took  up  and  discussed  the 
matter  of  schools, — any  one  of  which  (except  the  monument)  would  be 
worthy  of  a  whole  year's  activity.  I  say  I  welcome  the  narrowness  of 
my  field  and  the  fact  that  I  am  confined  to  just  one  object  and  that  my 
organization  is  not  going  to  be  split  apart  because  of  the  different  views 
of  members  on  direct  primaries  or  women  suffrage,  with  which  we  have 
nothing  to  do  as  an  organization. 

"  The  New  York  City  Club  unlike  the  Boston  City  Club  has  its  militant 
side.  It  has  its  civic  secretary  and  an  office  organized  on  quite  a  large 
scale  for  civic  work  and  it  expends  a  considerable 
New  York  sum  of  money  on  its  civic  work  each  year.  Although 

City  Club  I  know  that  this  has  raised  difficulties  at  times  in  the 

club,  I  do  not  think  they  have  lost  by  it.  I  have 
known  of  exciting  meetings  where  there  was  large  difference  of  opinion, 
where  members  have  gone  out,  but  I  do  not  believe  in  the  end  the  Club 
has  lost  by  it  at  all.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  reason  to  be  afraid 
of  that  sort  of  thing;  you  will  gain  as  much  as  you  lose.  If  you  take  a 
partisan  attitude  you  are  only  going  to  get  partisans,  that  is  true.  If  you 
are  taking  a  straightforward,  honest  attitude  on  a  public  question  or  a 
public  man,  I  see,  no  reason  why  the  club  should  be  split  apart,  through 
the  fact  that  it  takes  a  definite,  militant  attitude. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  me,  it  has  got  to  confine  its  program 
to  a  certain  extent,  to  certain  leading  issues.  It  can't  take  up  everything 
connected  with  the  city,  from  the  trees  and  the  pavements  to  the  candi- 
dates for  mayor, — at  least  if  it  is  going  to  be  effective.  If  it  does  want  to 
cover  the  whole  civic  field  it  seems  to  me  the  Boston  plan,  as  outlined 
here  to-day,  is  a  perfectly  logical  conclusion.  In  my  connection  with  city 
work,  in  a  large  city,  I  would  say  I  was  an  opportunist  largely  and  the 
question  of  the  nature  of  the  organization,  what  it  intends  to  do,  de- 
pends entirely  upon  local  or  political  conditions. 

"  Mr.  Hull  has  raised  the  question  whether  his  association  should  en- 
dorse candidates.  I  cannot  think  that  can  be  answered  by  general  ex- 
perience, without  knowing  the  situation  in  Cambridge.  If  there  is  some- 
one else  in  Cambridge  who  does  thoroughly  the  work  of  looking  up  the 
records  of  candidates  and  reports  on  them,  then  there  is  no  question  that 
a  taxpayers'  association  can  carry  on  its  work  better  without  doing  that. 
If  there  was  no  one  in  New  York  City  to  take  up  the  civil  service  re- 
form it  would  be  the  duty  of  the  City  Club  to  do  so  and  thereby  it  would 
hurt  some  of  its  members,  hurt  its  membership  through  those  among  it 
who  may  be  opposed  to  civil  service  reform.  But  they  leave  that  ab- 
solutely alone,  they  turn  it  over  to  the  Civil  Service  Reform  Association. 

"  While  I  have  said  that  I  believe  in  the  City  of  New  York,  under  our 
conditions,  it  is  impossible  to  consolidate  into  one  organization  that  shall 


532  THE  CIVIC  SECRETARIES'  CONFERENCE 

look  after  all  the  activities,  I  can  see  in  other  cities  where  it  is  most 
highly  desirable.  Mr.  Fesler  referred  to  me  earlier  this  afternoon  as 
being  willing  to  go  to  St.  Louis,  not  to  try  to  build  up  a  civil  service 
reform  association  there,  but  to  work  with  the  Civic  League  that  I  found 
there,  which  was  willing  and  anxious  and  had  already  taken  up  the  mat- 
ter of  civil  service  reform  for  the  charter.  Of  course  I  am.  I  am  an 
opportunist.  If  I  could  have  gone  in  there  and  built  up  a  civil  service 
reform  association  I  certainly  would  have  done  it.  But  finding  that  the 
field  was  occupied  and  that  there  is  somebody  else  to  push  it,  I  will  work 
with  it  wherever  I  can.  In  another  place  where  I  find  the  sentiment 
and  no  organization  in  the  field,  of  course  I  will  work  for  the  creation 
of  an  association.  I  believe,  that  the  kind  of  a  civic  association  and  the 
scope  of  its  duties  very  largely  depends  upon  the  political  and  social 
conditions  existing  in  a  particular  place. 

I  believe  the  enforcement  of  a  civil  service  law  depends  almost  entirely 
on  the  attitude  of  the  community,  on  their  watchfulness,  more  so  than 
almost  any  other  kind  of  law  that  you  can  have,  because  all  the  officers 
except  the  civil  service  commissioners  are  interested  in  breaking  through 
that  law  for  selfish  purpose.  So  it  needs  an  organization  to  watch  them 
constantly. 


Nomination    Reform. 

BOUND  TABLE  LUNCHEON  DISCUSSION. 

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER  ISTH,  i  p.  M. 
HORACE  E.  DEMING,  Chairman. 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  The  National  Municipal  League  confines  its  efforts  to 
the  field  of  city  government.  What  is  particularly  desired  therefore  at 
this  conference  is  a  frank  interchange  of  opinions  and  experience  as  to 
methods  of  making  nominations  to  elective  city  office.  Are  direct  pri- 
maries a  good  method  for  this  purpose?  Do  they  secure  a  better  class  of 
men  as  successful  candidates  than  other  methods?  What  is  their  effect 
in  eliminating  national  and  state  political  partisanship  from  influence  in 
the  conduct  of  city  government?  These  are  types  of  the  questions  to 
which  the  speakers  are  requested  to  direct  their  attention. 

There  are  several  varieties  of  direct  primaries.  In  Des  Moines,  Iowa, 
for  instance,  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  for  city  office  is  made  very 
simply  by  the  petition  of  twenty-five  of  his  fellow  citizens.  The  primary 
is  an  open  one.  The  ballots  used  at  the  primary  contain  the  names  of  all 
candidates  arranged  alphabetically  under  the  title  of 
Varieties  Of  the  office  they  seek.  No  political  name  or  mark  is 

Direct  Primaries  allowed  on  the  ballot.  Des  Moines  is  a  commission- 
governed  city.  The  elective  offices  are  a  mayor  and 
four  councilmen.  The  names  of  the  two  nominees  for  mayor  and  of  the 
eight  nominees  for  councilman  who  receive  the  highest  vote  at  the 
primary  are  the  only  ones  allowed  on  the  election-day  ballot  which  like 
the  primary  ballot,  has  no  political  mark  or  designation.  This  is  the 
Des  Moines  method  for  excluding  national  and  state  politics  from  local 
elections  and  having  city  officers  elected  by  a  majority  vote. 

In  some  cities  no  primaries  at  all  are  allowed.  In  Grand  Junction, 
Colorado,  candidates  are  nominated  very  simply  by  the  petition  of  twenty- 
five  citizens.  The  names  appear  alphabetically  on  the  election  day  ballot 
on  which  no  political  designation  of  any  sort  is  permitted,  and  the  pre- 
ferential vote  is  used  in  order  to  make  sure  that  those  elected  are  the 
choice  of  a  majority  of  their  fellow  citizens.  Boston  is  another  city 
which  forbids  primaries  altogether  in  city  elections  and  uses  ballots  on 
election  day  on  which  no  political  designation  is  permitted.  In  Boston 
also,  as  in  Des  Moines  and  Grand  Junction,  the  names  of  candidates  ap- 
pear alphabetically  under  the  title  to  the  office.  In  order  to  become  a 
candidate  for  elective  city  office  in  Boston  five  thousand  of  one's  fellow 
citizens  must  join  in  a  petition  nominating  him.  A  plurality  vote  on 
election  day  is  sufficient  to  elect. 

(533) 


534  NOMINATION  REFORM 

Boston  is  a  large  city.  It  has  towards  600,000  inhabitants.  Des  Moines 
has  approximately  90,000;  Grand  Junction  has — I  do  not  recall  the  exact 
number — but  it  is  less  than  25,000.  This  suggests  another  matter  which 
has  an  important  bearing  upon  the  topic  to  be  discussed  at  this  conference. 
The  word  "  city  "  in  this  country  means  anything  from  a  village  of  fifteen 
hundred  or  two  thousand  inhabitants  to  a  community  numbering  millions, 
according  to  the  whim  of  a  state  legislature.  Therefore,  when  you  make 
your  arguments,  if  you  want  those  arguments  to  apply  to  big  cities,  I 
hope  you  will  say  so.  If  3rou  mean  to  have  them  apply  to  the  small 
cities,  I  hope  you  will  say  so. 

We  shall  now  have  the  privilege  of  listening  to  Mr.  Louis  M.  Greeley 
of  Chicago  and  Mr.  Richard  S.  Childs  of  New  York,  who  have  prepared 
the  two  papers,  printed  copies  of  which  have  been  furnished  you  in 
advance  as  a  basis  for  the  discussion.  Each  is  entitled  to  ten  minutes 
to  present  a  summary  of  the  main  points  in  his  paper. 

[For  Mr.  Greeley's  paper  on  "  The  Present  Status  of  Direct  Nomin- 
ations," see  page  328.  For  Mr.  Childs's  on  "  The  Principle  of  Wieldy 
Districts,"  see  page  340.] 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  Gentlemen,  this  question  is  now  open  for  general 
discussion.  Mr.  Ansley  Wilcox,  of  Buffalo. 

MR.  ANSLEY  WILCOX:  Mr.  Chairman:  New  York  State  has  been,  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  Gov.  Hughes'  second  administration,  the  especial  battle- 
ground on  which  the  subject  of  direct  nominations  has  been  fought  out. 

Gov.  Hughes  more  and  more  during  his  term  of  office 
The  New  York  took  advanced  ground  in  favor  of  direct  nominations 
Situation  applied  in  a  sweeping  way,  comprehensively,  to  the 

entire  state  machinery  and  to  all  local  governmental 
machinery  as  well.  His  reasons  for  opposing  the  present  system,  no 
doubt  those  of  every  thinking  man,  his  arguments  against  the  machine 
system  by  which  our  state  has  been  governed  in  the  past,  were  un- 
answerable. Large  numbers  of  people  followed  him  to  the  end  and 
adopted  all  his  conclusions.  Some  of  us,  who  believed  in  his  purposes, 
who  wanted  to  work  with  him  earnestly  and  heartily,  could  not  believe 
it  safe  or  proper  in  a  state  the  size  of  New  York,  to  apply  the  system  of 
direct  nominations  to  the  entire  state  and  local  machinery  of  govern- 
ment at  the  same  time,  and  I  was  one  of  those.  I  thought  it  safer  and 
wiser  to  begin  in  a  moderate  way — and  many  other  men  were  of  that 
opinion — to  apply  it  to  small  communities  first.  In  thinking  about  it, 
it  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  the  places  in  which  it  could  first  and 
most  safely  be  applied  were  in  small,  compact  municipalities  where  peo- 
ple are  in  touch  with  one  another,  where  they  know  the  men  within  their 
limits,  where  they  read  the  same  newspapers  and  get  the  same  informa- 
tion, or  misinformation,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  where  public  sentiment 


535 

can  concentrate  upon  individual  candidates.  By  small  municipalities,  I 
mean  cities  with  populations  of  not  more  than  100,000  people.  And  as 
applicable  to  cities  of  that  class  I  want  to  outline  here  and  to  hold  be- 
fore this  body  of  thinkers  a  plan  of  direct  nominations  which  originated 
with  myself  in  1896  and  '7,  as  a  result  of  changes  in  our  organic  law 
which  had  been  created  immediately  before  that  time,  which  I  still  be- 
lieve to  be  altogether  the  best  and  most  workable  plan  of  direct  nomin- 
ations in  cities  of  that  class. 

In  1896,  as  a  result  of  our  new  constitution  adopted  at  that  time,  this 
State  separated  local  elections  from  national  and  state  elections,  abso- 
lutely, by  constitutional  amendment,  so  that  our  local  elections  must 
occur  in  odd-numbered  years  when  there  is  no  general  election.  That 
was  a  constitutional  declaration  in  favor  of  eliminating  party  politics 
from  local  elections,  and  a  constitutional  safeguard  thrown  about  it. 
About  the  same  time,  by  legislative  enactment,  the  state  provided  for  the 
personal  registration  of  voters  in  cities.  Now,  taking  those  two  features 
of  separate  local  elections  and  personal  registration :  I  suggested  a  direct 
primary  held  by  both  parties  at  the  same  time,  and  at  the  same  place, 
when  men  go  to  enroll  themselves  as  voters,  and  under  the  authority  of 
the  governmental  officers  then  and  there  seated  and  doing  their  work. 
Everybody  has  to  be  registered  or  he  cannot  vote,  and  my  idea  was  to 
make  a  man  vote  at  the  primary  election  before  he  was  allowed  to  re- 
gister, so  as  to  make  it  compulsory  for  him  to  be  at  the  primary  election. 
Let  there  be  a  Republican  and  a  Democratic  title  to  the  ballot,  if  you 
please,  but  vote  at  the  same  ballot-box. 

Now,  what  is  simpler  and  what  is  better  than  that?  It  insures  a 
large  primary,  in  the  first  place;  it  insures  a  secret  primary  in  the  second 
place,  saves  all  question  of  expense  and  new  machinery  in  the  third 
place,  and  it  simply  sifts  the  candidates,  sifts  them  out  and  picks  out 
those  whom  the  largest  number  of  people  want  to  vote  for  on  election  day. 

Now,  this  plan,  simple  as  it  is,  seems  to  have  qualifications.  It  could 
not  possibly  succeed  in  Buffalo  to-day,  because  we  have  to  vote  under  a 
party,  and  there  is  where  I  want  to  put  my  hand  in  the  hand  of  Mr. 
Childs,  and  say  that  he  is  advocating  the  best  movement  for  municipal 
reform  that  is  before  the  people  of  this  country  to-day,  and  that  is  the 
short  ballot.  [Applause.]  One  way  or  another  we 
The  Short  Ballot  have  got  to  get  the  short  ballot  in  our  cities  or  we 
will  never  get  good  government.  That  we  must  have. 
If  there  are  to  be  ten  or  a  dozen  candidates  to  vote  for,  any  system  of 
primary  election  you  can  think  of  will  be  a  failure,  in  a  large  or  a  small 
community.  Then,  in  addition  to  having  the  short  ballot,  in  the  cities, 
you  must  absolutely  do  away  with  the  party  column.  You  must  have  a 
Ballot  arranged  alphabetically  or  in  some  way,  so  that  every  candidate 
will  stand  upon  the  same  basis  and  each  one  be  voted  upon  individually, 
and  if  you  have  those  two  things,  in  addition  to 'the  things  I  have  sug- 


536  NOMINATION  REFORM 

gested  before,  I  believe  direct  nominations  in  cities  will  go  a  long  way 
towards  solving  the  problem  of  our  city  government.  [Applause.] 

LEWIS  STOCKTON,  of  Buffalo:  One  way  of  solving  the  difficulty  of 
getting  the  candidate  elected  in  a  large  city  without  the  aid  of  organized 
political  machines  is  the  actual  successful  practice  in  the  city  of  Grand 
Junction,  Colo.;  and  it  seems  to  me  we  do  not  have 
Preferential  to  go  any  further  to  accomplish  the  purposes  at  which 

Voting  we  are  aiming.  If  you  are  going  to  take  the  city  out 

of  politics,  you  are  not  going  any  longer  to  have  two 
parties,  and  you  must  therefore  no  longer  have  plurality  votes,  but 
majority  votes,  as  a  means  of  ascertaining  the  will  of  the  people.  Under 
the  Grand  Junction  system  every  candidate  for  an  elective  city  office 
is  elected  at  large;  you  can  vote  for  one  person  for  first  choice,  as  you 
do  at  present,  and  stop  there;  or  you  can  vote  further  and  vote  for  some 
other  candidate  as  your  second  choice  and  stop  there;  or  you  can  go 
still  further  and  vote  for  everybody  except  for  those  for  whom  you  do 
not  want  to  vote  at  all.  In  Grand  Junction,  political  machines  are  re- 
moved from  city  elections  and  every  successful  candidate  is  elected  by 
a  majority  vote. 

The  Boston  scheme  was  a  very  excellent  scheme,  but  it  failed  to  get 
hold  of  this  idea  that  if  they  were  going  to  establish  non-partisan 
government  of  the  city  they  ought  not  any  longer  to  have  plurality 
elections  as  expressive  of  the  will  of  the  people.  The  result  was  that 
the  good  people  of  Boston  with  all  their  intelligence  were  very  much 
surprised  to  find  they  had  elected  Fitzgerald  as  mayor.  Under  the  Grand 
Junction  plan  Mr.  Fitzgerald  would  not  have  been  elected  on  the  first 
ballot,  the  only  one  that  was  taken,  because  that  showed  that  he  did 
not  get  a  majority  vote  of  the  people  of  Boston.  What  would  have 
been  the  result  I  do  not  know,  but  certainly  the  result  might  have  been 
different,  which  a  great  many  people  in  Boston  would  have  been  very 
glad  to  see.  But  it  seems  to  me,  gentlemen,  that  we  ought  to  bear  in 
mind  that  if  we  want  a  non-partisan  system  of  election,  the  plurality 
vote  is  out  of  date,  that  the  majority  vote  is  the  true  test  and  is  ex- 
tremely easy  to  secure,  according  to  the  testimony  of  those  who  have 
tried  it. 

F.  S.  SPENCE,  of  Toronto:  Perhaps  a  word  or  two  concerning  the 
general  experience  of  Canadian  cities  might  be  of  interest  if  not  of  any 
other  value  Toronto  has  a  population  of  400,000.  The  question  that  you 

are  discussing  to-day  has  never  given  us  any  serious 
Canadian  trouble.  I  might  say  that  our  city  is  governed  by 

Experience  commission.  Perhaps  it  will  be  almost  as  accurate  to 

say  that  it  is  not,  because  we  have  endeavored  to 
separate  to  some  extent  the  two  functions  of  government,  which  some 
of  your  political  economists  taught  us  long  ago,  the  function  of  admin- 


F.  S.  SPENCE 


537 


istration  and  legislation.  We  elect  what  we  call  a  board  of  control  by 
the  city  at  large,  composed  of  four  persons,  who,  with  the  mayor  make 
up  the  administration.  On  the  English  system  of  responsible  govern- 
ment, every  member  of  an  administration  must  be  also  a  member  of  the 
legislative  body,  sitting  there  to  have  his  administration  criticised  and  be 
responsible  to  the  legislative  body.  We  have  then  the  mayor  and  four 
comptrollers,  elected  by  the  city  at  large.  Then  we  have  the  ward  system 
which  elects  the  common  council.  That  attends  to  the  legislative  work 
and  criticises  the  administrative  work  of  the  smaller  and  more  compact 
expert  body.  When  our  election  comes,  any  two  citizens  may  nominate 
any  citizen  they  choose  for  mayor;  any  two  citizens  may  nominate  a 
citizens  for  comptroller;  any  two  may  nominate  a  citizen  for  alderman 
in  their  ward.  A  majority  vote  elects  the  mayor  on  one  ballot  provided 
by  the  city  with  nothing  on  it  but  "  mayor ".  Another  ballot  contains 
the  names  of  all  who  are  candidates  for  comptroller,  and  the  four  high- 
est are  elected.  Another  contains  the  names  of  all  who  are  candidates 
for  aldermen,  and  the  three  highest  are  elected  from  each  ward,  because 
we  have  three  representativs  from  each  of  the  seven  wards  in  our  city. 
We  have  a  board  of  control  of  five  more,  making  up  26.  That  gives 
us  our  common  legislative  council  with  our  centralized  administrative 
body.  That  legislative  body  advises,  criticises,  corrects,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  controls. 

We  have  never  had  any  trouble  with  the  question  of  nominations. 
Somehow  ideas  center  around  individuals,  and  as  a  matter  of  practice  a 
man  who  gets  to  be  a  comptroller  graduates  from  the  position  of  alder- 
man. He  is  acquainted  in  his  ward,  he  is  selected  there  and  the  publicity 
that  his  career  in  council  gives  him  is  what  gives  the  public  the  measure 
of  whether  he  is  fit  for  mayor  or  for  the  board  of  control,  and  a  term 
in  the  board  of  control  gives  the  people  an  idea  whether  or  not  he  is 
a  proper  man  to  be  elected  as  mayor. 

For  mayor  rarely  more  than  four  names  are  nominated.  Public 
interest  concentrates  on  two.  Our  mayor  is  almost  invariably  elected 
by  a  majority  of  the  votes  cast.  Members  of  the  board  of  control 
are  elected  by  the  city  at  large.  Sometimes  the  board  of  control  ballot 
has  contained  as  high  as  nine  or  ten  names.  From  among  those  the 
four  with  the  largest  votes  are  chosen.  A  citizen  is  not  always  required 
to  be  a  resident  of  the  ward  in  which  he  runs,  but  he  nearly  always 
is  as  a  matter  of  fact.  There  are  three  aldermen  elected  upon  the  ward 
ballot.  As  a  rule  there  would  not  be  more  than  five  or  six  names  put 
upon  the  ballot. 

The  three  aldermen,  the  mayor  and  comptrollers  are  all  elected  on 
New  Year's  Day,  which  is  a  public  holiday,  and  the  municipal  election 
is  always  separate  from  any  other  election  whatever. 

The  term  is  only  twelve  months  at  present.    We  have  no  recall.    We 


538  NOMINATION  REFORM 

have  no  referendum.  We  find  that  coming  back  once  a  year  gives  the 
people  sufficient  control  over  their  officials.  When  I  say  the  term  is 
only  one  year,  I  speak  of  the  city  of  Toronto.  My  friend  here  from 
Montreal  is  from  a  city  where  they  elect  the  aldermen,  I  think  for  two 
years,  and  the  mayor  for  four  years. 

STILES  P.  JONES,  of  Minneapolis:  Perhaps  it  is  proper  for  me  to  say  a 
word  as  coming  from  a  city  and  a  ward  and  a  state  in  the  United 
States  which  have  used  the  direct  nominations  system  for  the  longest 
term  of  years.  We  have  had  direct  primaries  in  the  State  of  Minnesota 
for  ten  years,  and  in  the  eighth  ward  of  Minneapolis  for  twelve  years. 
We  tried  it  in  that  ward  first  on  the  principle  of 
Minneapolis'  trying  it  on  the  dog,  and  it  worked  so  successfully 

Experience  that  immediately,  without  any  trouble  whatever,  a  bill 

went  through  the  legislature  with  hardly  a  politician 
protesting,  for  the  direct  primary  for  municipal,  legislative,  congressional 
and  judiciary  offices,  all  offices  up  to  the  state  officers.  Agitation  is  now 
on  for  the  extension  of  the  system  to  the  state  officers. 

As  to  the  results:  I  shall  speak  specifically  of  the  city  of  Minneapolis 
and  not  of  any  other  community.  The  effect  of  the  direct  primary  has 
been  to  bring  practically  all  the  people  of  the  city  into  participation  in 
the  nomination  of  the  officers.  From  75  to  95  per  cent,  according  to  the 
wards  of  the  city,  or  according  to  different  conditions  in  different  cam- 
paigns, participate  in  the  direct  primary,  as  against  15  to  20  per  cent 
under  the  old  system.  That  is  the  first  result.  It  has  absolutely  elimin- 
ated the  intolerable  evils  of  the  old  convention  system  which  are  many 
and  serious.  It  has  practically  eliminated  the  influence  of  the  partisan 
political  bosses.  Then,  best  of  all,  perhaps,  it  has  broken  down  partisan 
lines  in  the  community  almost  to  the  vanishing  point  We  have  got  to 
the  point  now  where  strong  Republican  wards  are  electing  Democratic 
aldermen,  and  a  strong  Republican  city,  of  say  12,000  majority  for  the 
Republican  party,  elected  for  a  fourth  term,  on  November  8th,  a  Demo- 
crat for  mayor.  Then,  finally,  it  has  been  a  tremendous  educational  in- 
fluence on  the  voters.  It  has  given  them  an  interest  in  their  community, 
in  their  city  and  in  politics  which  they  never  had  before,  and  has  brought 
to  them  an  appreciation  of  their  responsibilities  as  citizens,  which  they 
never  assumed  before.  The  educational  value  of  the  system,  I  believe, 
is  its  greatest  asset.  There  are  many  politicians,  who  would  put  us  back 
into  the  groove  of  the  old  days,  but  there  are  none  who  will  dare  run 
the  risk  of  political  annihilation  by  suggesting  it  in  the  legislature.  The 
probability  is  that  at  the  coming  session  of  the  legislature  there  will  be 
a  tremendous  agitation,  and  I  think  it  will  result  in  extending  the  pri- 
mary system  to  state  officers  and  to  United  States  senators.  I  think 
that  the  direct  primary  movement  is  almost  irresistible  in  the  State  of 
Minnesota.  [Applause.] 


GEORGE  A.  O.  ERNST 


539 


MR.  GEORGE  A.  O.  ERNST,  of  Boston:  As  one  of  those  who  helped  to  draw 
the   charter   amendments   and   as   one   of   those  who   was   very   bitterly 
disappointed  in  the  result  of  the  mayoralty  election, 
Boston's  I  will  say  that  I  am  not  at  all  discouraged  because  of 

Experience  that  result.    We  found  this  situation  in  Boston, — we 

had  the  direct  primaries,  but  we  had  the  party  nomin- 
ations. Boston  is  overwhelmingly  Democratic.  The  result  was  that  you 
could  not  make  any  combination  of  any  kind  with  men  who  happened  to 
be  Democrats  or  Republicans  on  national  and  state  issues,  but  who 
thought  the  same  on  municipal  issues. 

Now,  we  had  the  alternative.  We  had  found  that  the  convention  sim- 
ply meant  manipulation  by  certain  people  who  wanted  their  own  way 
and  generally  got  it  and  that  as  a  matter  of  putting  up  satisfactory  can- 
didates it  was  more  or  less  a  failure  with  us,  whatever  it  may  be  any- 
where else,  and  we  wanted  to  get  rid  of  the  convention.  We  could  go  on 
with  the  primaries  and  make  them  what  is  called  an  open  primary,  but 
we  understood  that  when  that  was  done,  the  result  was  that  there  were 
sometimes  nominated  two  men  neither  one  of  whom  the  citizens  wanted 
to  vote  for,  and  one  of  the  unsatisfactory  men  was  elected.  We  felt 
that  there  was  danger  in  what  was  known  as  the  open  primary,  and  we 
felt  that  direct  nominations  by  the  people  themselves  was  an  experiment 
worth  trying. 

We  never  have  claimed  for  the  amendments  to  Boston's  charter  any- 
thing more  than  that  they  were  experiments  in  what  we  believed  to  be 
in  the  right  direction,  which  ought  to  be  tried  so  that  the  people  could 
be  tested.  The  election  of  last  year  was  not  really  a  full  test,  because 
we  were  starting  for  the  first  time  and  we  had  not  got  our  ballot  down  as 
short  as  we  wanted  it.  We  were  unanimous  believers 
Boston's  Short  in  what  is  known  as  a  short  ballot.  We  made  a  short 
Ballot  ballot.  We  reduced  the  election  down  to  its  lowest 

terms.  We  made  a  city  council  of  nine  members.  We 
had  to  start  by  electing  those  nine  at  the  beginning,  because  we  had  to 
have  a  city  council.  Hereafter  we  shall  have  only  three.  Next  January, 
for  example,  the  only  names  that  will  apear  upon  the  ticket  will  be  three 
members  of  the  city  council  and  two  members  of  the  school  board.  It  is 
about  as  small  a  ballot  as  you  can  possibly  get.  What  we  are  afraid 
of  is  that  the  people  will  lose  absolutely  all  interest  in  the  election  next 
January  because  thre  are  so  few  names  on  the  ballot.  We  fear  there  is 
nothing  there  to  arouse  them,  to  excite  them.  The  test  is  going  to  be 
simple,  and  the  question  is  whether  the  people  will  be  interested  in  muni- 
cipal decency  and  good  government,  and  that  is  going  to  be  tested  in 
Boston. 

If  you  really  analyze  the  vote  of  last  year  you  will  find  that  while 
some  of  us  were  disappointed  in  regard  to  the  mayoralty,  yet,  out  of  nine 
members  of  the  city  council,  one  candidate  for  mayor  and  one  candidate 


540  NOMINATION  REFORM 

for  school  committee,  making  eleven  officers  in  all,  the  so-called  reform 
movement  won  out  on  seven  of  the  city  council  and  on  the  school  com- 
mitteeman,  and  lost  the  mayor  by  only  a  meagre  minority.  A  change  of 
702  votes  in  the  city  of  Boston  would  have  given  us  the  mayor  that  we 
wanted,  and  he  lost  for  reasons  which  it  is  not  worth  while  for  me  to 
go  into,  but  which  some  of  those  who  are  his  warmest  supporters  felt 
were  satisfactory  reasons.  We  wanted  him,  but  we  were  sorry  that 
certain  methods  were  adopted.  He  spent,  for  example,  $92,000  in  his  elec- 
tion. Now,  we  do  not  believe  in  $92,000  being  spent  even  by  a  reformer. 
[Applause.] 

We  have  in  Boston  a  registration  of  110,000.  There  were  about  96,000 
votes  cast,  and  the  people  when  they  went  to  the  polls  had  not  a  sign  on 
the  ballot  as  to  who  and  what  the  candidates  were,  absolutely  nothing 
except  the  names  of  the  candidates.  Now,  when  for  the  first  time  in 
a  great  community  like  Boston,  made  up  as  it  is  of  all  sorts  of  people, 
you  find  those  people  going  to  the  polls  without  any  guide, — heretofore 
for  years  they  have  had  "  Republican  "  or  "  Democratic  "  or  "  Socialist " 
candidate,  or  whatever  it  might  be  to  put  their  cross  against — I  say  the 
result  of  the  election  was  the  strongest  of  proof  that  you  can  trust  the 
people.  If  you  will  only  not  get  discouraged  at  the  first  election  when  it 
goes  wrong,  but  will  keep  on  and  keep  on  and  on,  you  can  trust  them, 
and  sooner  or  later  they  will  vote,  and  vote  right.  [Applause.] 

We  know  that  in  the  cities  of  England  ten  electors  can  nominate  a 
man  for  the  council,  but  we  felt  that  if  only  ten  are  interested  sufficiently 
in  a  candidate  to  join  in  his  nomination,  this  is  not  much  evidence  that 
the  people  are  interested  in  him.  We  thought  it  safer  to  have  evidence 
that  at  least  5,000  people  were  interested.  That  is  less  than  5%  of  the 
registered  vote  of  110,000.  Now,  if  you  haven't  got  5%  of  the  registered 
vote  interested  enough  in  a  candidate  to  nominate  him,  you  haven't  got 
any  movement  at  all  for  him.  We  recognize,  of  course,  that  if  the 
signatures  to  the  nominating  petition  are  to  become  articles  of  merchan- 
dise, they  will  not  represent  any  real  popular  movement ;  but  wait  at  least 
until  next  January  and  see  whether  or  not  your  short  ballot  will  work, 
because  then  for  the  first  time  it  is  going  to  be  truly  tested  in  Boston. 

HON.  WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE,  of  Richmond,  Ind.:  I  come  from  a 
small  city  and  from  a  county  in  which  the  experiment  of  the  open  pri- 
mary was  tried  a  long  while  before  it  was  tried  even  in  Minneapolis. 
When  I  went  there  in  1876  it  was  in  practice  and  it  is  in  practice  still. 
It  was  not  tried  under  any  legal  sanction  whatever,  but  was  simply  the 
voluntary  action  of  the  Republican  party,  which  is  a  party  in 

very  large  majority  in  the  county,  and  quite  a  fair 
Experience  of  majority  in  the  city;  and  while  I  cannot  fully  concur 
Richmond,  Ind  in  the  opinions  of  the  gentleman  from  Minneapolis, 

who  refers  to  it  as  a  complete  success,  I  will  say  that 
in  comparison  to  the  convention  system  it  works  well;  but  it  has  several 


WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE 


541 


serious  infirmities.  One  of  the  most  serious  is  perhaps  this :  as  I  said 
to  you,  the  county  is  reliably  Republican;  as  is  the  city.  This  un- 
doubtedly induces  some  of  our  Democratic  friends  and  some  of  the 
candidates  to  desire  to  manipulate  their  votes,  to  get  them  to  vote  in  the 
primary  for  the  weakest  and  poorest  Republican  candidates.  This  prac- 
tice can  only  be  controlled  imperfectly  by  the  -Republican  organization. 
Under  a  system  which  allows  a  man  to  determine  for  himself  to  which 
party  he  belongs,  his  own  party  affiliation,  it  could  not  be  controlled  at  all. 

MR.  CHILDS  :  Mr.  Ernst  of  Boston  says  they  will  have  a  short  ballot 
there  in  January.  I  do  not  think  that  will  be  a  true  short  ballot.  It  will 
not  accord  with  the  short  ballot  principle  as  denned  by  the  short  ballot 
organization,  which  says,  first,  "  That  only  those  offices 
The  Heal  should  be  elective  which  are  important  enough  to  at- 

Short  Ballot  tract  and  deserve  public  examination."  That  is  one 

wing  of  the  short  ballot  principle.  The  nine  aldermen 
or  councilmen  of  Boston  have  very  little  power.  They  are  overshadowed 
by  the  mayor,  and  their  power  is  very  largely  merely  obstructive.  The 
power  to  determine  policies  vested  in  city  council,  is  not  large  enough  to 
get  the  city  of  Boston  excited  over  the  issue  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  people  of  Boston  will  really  rise  up  and  fight  except  over  the 
mayoralty  under  that  plan.  The  power  should  be  more  evenly  divided 
among  the  elective  officers. 

I  do  not  know  whether  membership  in  the  school  board  is  an  interest- 
ing office  to  the  people  of  Boston. 

MR.  ERNST:  In  1906  we  reduced  the  school  committee  from  24  to  5 
for  the  very  purpose  of  doing  what  I  understand  Mr.  Childs  and  those 
who  believe  in  the  short  ballot  want,  to  have  the  people  able  to  pick 
out  five  strong  men.  They  did  it.  We  have  had  five  strong,  able  men, 
and  the  schools  have  never  been  better  in  the  city  of  Boston  than  they 
are  to-day.  We  have  a  very  strong  school  board,  and  Boston  takes 
intense  interest  in  its  schools. 

JOHN  IHLDER,  of  New  York  City:  In  Grand  Rapids  we  have  a  school 
board  of  nine  members  elected  at  large,  three  each  year.  We  do  not 
have  very  much  excitement,  as  they  expect  to  have  in  Boston,  yet  during 
the  five  or  six  years  since  we  have  had  this  board,  we  have  elected  to 
it  each  year,  without  excitement,  some  of  the  best  men  in  the  community. 
Our  school  board  has  been  transformed  from  what  it  used  to  be  under 
the  old  ward  system,  and  we  now  have  better  schools  than  we  ever 
dreamt  of  having  before. 

GEORGE  H.  SMITH,  of  Rochester,  New  York:  I  merely  wish  to  say  in 
the  way  of  illustrating  the  interest  in  school  questions  that  since  Rochester 


542  NOMINATION  REFORM 

cut  down  its  school  board  from  one  to  a  ward  to  a  board  elected  at 
large,  numbering  five,  intense  interest  has  concentrated  around  the  elec- 
tion of  members  to  the  school  board. 

DR.  ALLEN,  of  New  York:  The  proposition  that  the  more  the  public  is 
interested  in  a  candidate  the  more  efficient  the  candidate's  service  is  apt 
to  be,  can  be  illuminated  by  the  experience  in  New  York  City.  I  should 
like  to  ask  Mr.  Childs  whether  in  his  judgment  it  is  true  that  in  New 
York  City  those  offices  on  which  public  attention  has  been  concentrated, 
at  the  last  election  or  anyone  of  the  last  ten  elections,  have  been  more 
efficiently  administered  than  those  offices  which  the  public  has  paid  no 
attention  to  and  voted  for  merely  as  a  matter  of  routine.  That  is  the 
test,  is  it  not,  of  the  short  ballot  theory? 

MR.  CHILDS  :  I  think  they  have  been  more  efficiently  administered. 
Compare  the  board  of  estimate  with  the  board  of  aldermen,  for  example. 

MR.  ALLEN  :  I  would  like  to  accept  that  challenge,  and  I  wish  it  were  pos- 
sible for  the  National  Municipal  League  to  make  an  analysis  of  the  experi- 
ence in  New  York  City  and  to  contrast,  not  a  legislative  body  with  an  ad- 
ministrative body,  which  Mr.  Childs  does,  but  to  contrast  an  administra- 
tive officer  like  the  mayor  with  an  administrative  officer  like  a  borough 
president,  or  a  registrar  of  deeds  or  something  like  that,  that  nobody  has 
paid  much  attention  to.  I  would  like  to  have  the  verdict  of  the  National 
Municipal  League  as  to  where  the  largest  percentage  of  inefficiency  and 
incompetence  and  waste  and  obstruction  to  good  government  is  found  in 
New  York  City.  I  believe  it  will  be  found  that  in  New  York  City 
malfeasance  in  office  under  the  mayor,  upon  which  the  public  attention 
has  been  concentrated  at  the  time  of  the  election,  vastly  exceeds  in  pro- 
portion, as  well  as  in  amount  that  which  exists  under  these  neglected 
offices,  which  we  are  told  ought  to  be  abolished  under  the  short  ballot. 
If  that  is  true,  and  I  have  tried  to  find  out  whether  it  is  true  or  not,  it 
is  only  fair  that  a  body  like  the  National  Municipal  League  ought  to 
consider  the  fact  in  discussing  the  relative  merits  of  the  short  ballot, 
and  it  comes  back  to  the  statement  made  several  times  to-day  that  this 
attempt  to  get  a  short  cut  to  good  government  by  disregarding  the  fun- 
damental need  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  public  as  to  what  is 
happening  is  bound  to  run  us  up  a  tree,  whether  we  call  it  commission, 
bicameral,  or  short  or  long  ballot,  and  it  is  a  great  pity  that  in  our 
talk  about  the  commission  form  of  government,  which  New  York  City 
has  for  99%  of  its  service,  we  cannot  find  a  little  more  space  and  time 
for  the  education  of  the  public  as  to  the  gap  between  what  we  think  we 
ought  to  get  and  what  we  actually  are  getting.  [Applause.] 

MR.  GREELEY:  It  seems  to  me  that  the  moral  of  Mr.  Foulke's  remark 


SAMUEL  H.  RANCK 

is  that  we  should  have  a  closed  primary,  should  have  registration  with 

party   affiliation   and   should   require  a  man  who  has 

Illinois'  once  voted  at  a  given  party  primary  to  stick  to  that 

Experience  party  for  a  very  considerable  period.    That  is  what 

we    have    in    Illinois.       It    seems    to    me    that    would 

obviate  the  objections  that  he  finds  to  the  direct  primary  as  it  works  in 

his  county  and  city. 

With  regard  to  the  difficulty  of  having  fusion  candidates  under  the 
present  direct  primary  system,  I  do  not  think  that  is  inherent  in  the  sys- 
tem. I  see  no  reason  why  legal  provision  could  not  be  made  by  which 
fusion  candidates  could  be  had  whenever  it  is  desirable.  That  is  a  prob- 
lem with  which  we  are  wrestling  in  Illinois  now.  We  are  cursed  in 
Illinois  with  minority  representation,  and  it  is  responsible  for  the  legis- 
lative scandals  which  exist  in  our  state  and  which  have  become  notorious 
the  country  over.  There  are  three  legislators  to  be  elected  in  each  dis- 
trict; and  any  voter  may  vote  either  at  the  primary  or  at  the  final  elec- 
tion, three  votes  for  one  candidate,  a  vote-and-a-half  for  two,  or  one 
vote  for  three.  The  present  primary  law  with  regard  to  legislative 
candidates  permits  the  party  committee  to  determine  the  number  of 
party  nominations  that  shall  be  put  up,  whether  one  or  two  or  three. 
The  Illinois  Supreme  Court  has  made  recently  a  Delphic  utterance  on 
the  subject  which  really  does  not  tell  us  whether  the  provision  is  legal 
or  is  not  legal,  and  we  do  not  know  how  we  stand. 

MR.  WILCOX  :  My  argument  was  intended  to  express  the  idea  that  the 
places  where  direct  nominations  could  be  tried  most  successfully  and  with 
the  best  hope  of  satisfactory  results,  was  in  the  small  urban  communities. 
That  gives  the  best  chances  of  success.  I  believe  in  beginning  in  the 
way  which  offers  the  best  chance  of  success  and  where  you  can  watch 
the  working  of  the  plan  most  closely  and  improve  it,  if  the  mechanism 
needs  to  be  improved,  before  you  apply  it  on  a  large  scale. 

MR.  A.  P.  ROSE,  of  Geneva:  I  would  like  to  say  that  although 
we  have  not  a  non-partisan  primary  where  I  am,  yet  practically  we  have 
proved  that  its  theory  will  not  work,  because  in  my  county  a  Republican 
nomination  is  equivalent  to  an  election,  and  it  is  constantly  the  rule  that 
the  Democrats  will  go  in  and  carry  the  Republic  caucus,  and  they  would 
do  the  same  even  if  they  could  not  thereafter  vote  in  their  own  caucus, 
because  it  is  of  no  consequence  what  they  do  in  their  own  caucus,  and  it  is 
very  important  what  is  done  in  the  Republican  caucus.  Therefore  the 
Democrats  will,  as  they  constantly  do,  vote  in  the  Republican  caucus  and 
carry  that  caucus  for  such  candidate  as  they  wish. 

SAMUEL  H.  RANCK,  of  Grand  Rapids:  Mr.  Chairman,  I  just  want  to 
point  out  one  thing  that  I  think  has  been  overlooked,  which  has  been 
raised  as  a  criticism  as  to  certain  features  of  the  primary,  as  I  have 


544  NOMINATION  REFORM 

seen  them  in  operation  in  three  states,  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland  for 
certain  things,  and  Michigan,  and  that  is  the  expense  connected  with  a 

primary  campaign.  That  expense  in  the  municipal 
Expense  of  the  election  is  keeping  out,  I  happen  to  know,  certain 
Primary  men  who  would  make  good  officials,  simply  because 

they  say  they  cannot  afford  the  expense  connected 
with  the  primary  campaigns.  That  feature  was  not  touched  on,  I  be- 
lieve, to-day,  but  I  think  it  is  something  that  will  have  to  be  considered 
in  working  out  the  solution  of  this  thing. 

MR.  PLEYDELL,  of  New  York:  Mr.  Chairman,  a  word  in  emphasis  of 
what  Mr.  Ranck  has  said.  The  direct  primary  for  a  small  compact  dis- 
trict like  a  township,  or  even  some  counties,  can  be  worked  cheaply.  As 
has  been  said,  a  man  can  go  around  and  canvass  among  his  neighbors, 
knowing  all  about  them.  I  live  and  vote  in  a  small  district,  not  in  New 
York,  and  I  saw  a  man  turn  a  vote  of  900,  in  a  community  of  3000,  into 
a  majority  of  450,  simply  by  personal  effort,  last  week.  A  man  can  do 
those  things  where  he  can  go  around  among  his  neighbors.  As  you 
enlarge  the  district  you  make  it  harder  and  harder  for  a  man  to  get  out 
a  primary  vote  for  himself,  unless  he  has  one  of  two  things,  either  plenty 
of  money  or  the  newspapers,  and  unfortunately  in  some  of  the  direct 
primary  contests  I  know  of,  the  money  has  bought  the  newspapers, — 
not  always  their  influence,  but  the  space, — and  the  man  who  has  had  the 
money  has  had  that  newspaper  notoriety  which  has  been  equivalent  to 
carry  the  primary  and  is  only  a  substitute  for  the  political  machine  with- 
out the  responsibility  that  there  always  is  on  the  political  machine. 

MR.  CHILDS  :  I  want  to  use  a  minute  because  I  do  not  want  to  leave 
Mr.  Allen's  challenge  unanswered.  My  work  begins  after  his  ends. 
Through  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  he  finds  out  if  a  public  offi- 
cial is  not  doing  right.  That  public  official  perhaps  comes  up  as  a  can- 
didate for  re-election.  If  he  is  running  for  a  conspicuous  office  and  one 
in  which  the  people  are  taking  an  interest,  Mr.  Allen's  exposure  will 
hurt  him.  If  he  is  a  candidate  for  an  obscure  office  in  which  the  people 
are  taking  no  interest,  Mr.  Allen's  exposure  will  be  of  no  avail.  There 
will  be  no  excitement  over  any  exposures  he  can  make  in  the  county 
clerk's  office  compared  to  the  excitement  there  would  be  over  the  ex- 
posure of  some  conspicuous  officer.  What  I  am  after  is  obedient  govern- 
ment. Efficient  government  is  incidental.  If  the  people  want  efficient 
government  they  must  get  it  by  means  of  getting  an  obedient  govern- 
ment first,  and  then  demand  efficiency.  [Applause.] 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  Now,  gentlemen,  we  will  adjourn  to  the  regular  ses- 
sion. I  see  that  Mr.  Paine  has  gone,  thus  withdrawing  his  consent  that 
we  stay  here. 


The    Police    Problem    Luncheon. 

WEDNESDAY  NOON,  NOVEMBER  16,  1910. 

MR.  ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN,  Secretary  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Re- 
form League,  as  chairman,  called  the  meeting  to  order  at  1.45  p.  m.  and 
stated  that  the  subject  of  discussion  would  be  the  police  problem,  as  set 
forth  in  a  pamphlet  prepared  for  this  meeting,  entitled  "  The  Organiza- 
tion of  Police  Forces,"  by  Dr.  Leonhard  Felix  Fuld,  the  author  of  "  Police 
Administration "  and  an  examiner  of  the  Municipal  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission of  New  York.  [See  page  281.]  He  reviewed  the  points 
raised  by  Dr.  Fuld  in  regard  to  the  application  of  civil  service  rules  to 
appointments  and  promotions  in  the  police  force  and  called  attention  to 
the  striking  inconsistency  involved  in  requiring  candidates  for  entrance 
to  submit  to  a  very  severe  physical  examination,  but  after  they  have  once 
been  appointed  no  provision  is  made  for  further  physical  examination, 
unless  a  man  offers  himself  as  a  candidate  for  promotion.  He  stated  it 
as  his  opinion  that  one  of  the  main  reasons  for  inefficiency  in  the  en- 
forcement of  the  law  by  the  police  was  the  multiplicity  of  laws,  ordin- 
ances and  regulations,  frequently  confusing  and  occasionally  conflicting, 
which  the  individual  patrolman  was  expected  to  enforce.  This  left  it 
to  the  single  policeman  on  the  beat  to  decide  whether  or  not  a  particular 
offense  committed  in  his  presence  should  cause  an  arrest  and  by  thus 
lodging  discretion  in  the  performance  of  his  duties  in  the  patrolman  the 
door  was  thrown  wide  open  for  corruption,  favoritism  and  negelct  of  duty. 

PROF.  HATTON,  Cleveland,  Ohio:  Mr.  Goodwin  pointed  out  that  one 
of  the  reasons  why  we  do  not  have  more  effective  police  service  in  many 
of  our  cities,  is  on  account  of  the  multiplicity  of  laws 
Multiplicity  to  be  enforced.  I  am  willing  to  agree  that  it  does 

of  Laws  complicate  our  police  situation  in  America,  that  we 

do  expect  the  police  to  attend  to  more  things  than  they 
are  expected  to  look  after  in  foreign  countries.  I  am  inclined  to  think, 
however,  that  it  is  not  a  fundamental  defect  in  our  police  work,  be- 
cause I  believe  with  the  proper  form  of  police  organization  and  police 
control,  it  is  possible  to  secure  a  pretty  thorough  enforcement  even  of 
the  great  mass  of  law  which  a  policeman  is  now  called  upon  to  enforce. 

I  will  give  you  this  illustration.  In  some  investigations  T  have  made 
of  the  liquor  question  in  cities,  especially  in  talking  it  over  with  chiefs 
of  police,  it  has  frequently  been  said  to  me  that  the  saloons  could  not  be 
closed  on  Sunday  because  to  do  so  would  require  the  use  of  the  entire 
police  force,  it  being  necessary,  it  was  stated,  to  place  a  policeman  in 

(545) 


546  THE  POLICE  PROBLEM 

front  of  every  individual  saloon.  I  am  frank  to  say  that  I  do  not  think 
the  Sunday  closing  law,  in  many  of  our  cities,  could  be  entirely  enforced. 
However,  the  line  of  reasoning  which  I  have  suggested  is  wholly  fal- 
lacious, because  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  place  a  policeman  in  front 
of  every  saloon  in  order  to  close  it  on  Sunday.  If  we  could  bring  about 
a  condition  under  which  any  man  found  violating  the  Sunday  closing 
law  would  be  promptly  arrested  and  punished,  you  would  need  only  one 
policeman  for  forty  or  fifty  saloons.  The  difficulty  of  the  situation  is 
that  our  police  forces  are  so  organized  and  so  controlled  that  it  is  pos- 
sible through  a  system  of  petty  graft,  either  on  the  part  of  the  patrol- 
man or,  more  usually,  on  the  part  of  his  commanding  officer,  to  grant 
immunity  to  the  saloon-keepers  who  wish  to  keep 
Sunday  Law  their  saloons  open  on  Sunday.  In  other  words,  there 

Enforcement  is  a  lack  of  harmony  between  the  local  sentiment  in 

the  city  and  the  state  sentiment  which  forces  the 
Sunday  closing  law  upon  the  statute  books.  Until  we  can  work  out 
some  system  whereby  the  state  can  force  a  local  police  force  to  put  in 
operation  fully  these  statutes  passed  by  the  state,  we  shall  continue  to 
have  violations  of  that  sort  of  law.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  root  of  the 
police  question  is  to  be  found  in  the  method  of  controlling  the  police  force. 
The  solution  of  the  problem  of  police  control,  in  my  opinion,  is  a  con- 
dition precedent  to  any  satisfactory  answer  to  practically  any  of  the 
other  police  problems. 

I  hope  that  before  this  discussion  is  closed,  Mr.  Goodwin  or  someone 
else,  will  outline  a  little  more  clearly  just  what  sort  of  efficiency  records 
can  be  established.  Dr.  Fuld  in  his  book  and  in  his  paper  says,  and  I 
think  very  properly,  that  one  of  the  necessary  conditions  of  efficient 
police  service  is  the  establishment  of  efficiency  records  upon  which  to 
base  recommendations  for  promotion.  While  that  is  true,  yet  that  is 
one  of  the  most  difficult  problems  set  for  the  modern  police  reformer,  in 
my  opinion.  The  question  that  puzzles  me  is  how  to  work  out  an 
efficiency  test  of  actual  police  service,  because  it  is  almost  always  neces- 
sary to  depend  for  a  decision  of  the  question  of  how 
Efficiency  Tests  a  particular  policeman  has  performed  his  duty  upon 
the  record  made  by  some  higher  official.  In  other 
words,  the  elimination  of  the  personal  equation  in  making  these  records 
upon  which  efficiency  is  to  be  based,  is  the  serious  problem,  and  one  that 
I  have  not  yet  worked  out  satisfactorily  to  myself.  I  know  that  a  num- 
ber of  police  departments  and  some  civil  service  commissions  are  work- 
ing earnestly  upon  that  question  now. 

Dr.  Fuld,  as  I  understand,  thinks  that  the  head  of  the  police  depart- 
ment should  be  appointed  by  the  mayor.  He  makes  the  suggestion  that 
he  should  be  appointed  for  a  long  term,  in  his  opinion  for  ten  years,  and 
that  once  having  been  appointed  the  head  of  a  police  force  should  not 
be  removed  except  upon  a  statement  of  charges  and  after  the  right  to 


WILLIAM  CHURCH  OSBORN 


547 


be  heard.  He  says  further  that  the  head  of  the  police  force  ought  to 
have  the  right  to  appeal  from  the  original  trial  board  to  the  courts. 
He  says  very  plainly  that  this  principle  is  not  sound  as  to  most  other 
appointive  offices ;  but  he  thinks  that  so  far  as  the  police  commissioner 
is  concerned,  he  should  have  a  right  to  appeal  to  the  courts,  because  the 
office  involves  so  many  political  possibilities,  and  the  charges  urged  against 
a  police  commissioner  are  likely  to  be  so  purely  political. 

As  to  the  first  proposition  that  the  police  force  should  be  under  the 
control  of  one  man,  I  take  it  we  are  all  agreed.  That  he  should  be  ap- 
pointed for  a  long  term,  I  believe  every  student  of  the  police  question 
will  agree.  I  am  in  some  doubt,  however,  as  to  whether  the  suggestion 
that  a  chief  of  police  should  be  appointed  for  ten  years  is  a  proper  one. 
I  am  rather  inclined  to  believe  that  a  chief  of  police  should  be  appointed 
for  an  indefinite  tenure  and  that,  in  the  long  run,  it  will  perhaps  be  wiser 
to  make  him  removable  by  the  appointing  power  upon  the  simple  public 
statement  of  the  charges  against  him.  I  am  aware  that  in  certain  cities 
this  has  resulted  in  removals  for  purely  political  reasons,  but  my  observa- 
tion has  led  me  to  believe  that,  in  most  of  our  cities  where  the  mayor 
may  remove  the  chief  of  police,  but  only  upon  the  statement  of  charges, 
public  sentiment  is  gradually  becoming  strong  enough  to  force  a  mayor 
who  might  wish  to  remove  a  chief  of  police  for  purely  political  reasons, 
to  leave  him  in  his  office.  I  may  be  wrong  in  this,  but,  for  the  present, 
I  would  be  rather  inclined  to  say  that  our  chiefs  of  police  should  be 
appointed  for  an  indefinite  period  and  made  removable  by  the  mayor  upon 
a  public  statement  of  charges. 

One  word  more.  I  do  not  believe  we  can  have  any  effective  policing 
in  the  United  States  until  we  establish  a  system  of  inspection  by  some 
power  outside  of  the  city  that  will  standardize  our  police  work  among 
the  cities  and  until  there  is  gronted  to  some  central  authority,  perhaps 
the  governor  of  the  state,  the  power  to  remove  chiefs  of  police  for  the 
failure  to  enforce  state  law. 

MR.  WILLIAM  CHURCH  OSBORN,  New  York:  I  am  inclined  very  strongly 
to  agree  with  Professor  Hatton  in  his  observations  with  reference  to  the 
length  of  term  of  the  police  commissioner.  I  at  one  time  sat  on  what 
was  known  as  the  Committee  of  Nine  on  the  police  department  of  New 
York  City,  and  I  think  it  is  no  violation  of  confidence  to  say  that  when 
that  committee  first  assembled  there  were  two  principles  of  police  admin- 
istration which  took  the  position  of  being  fixed  facts.  One  of  them  was 
that  the  term  of  the  commissioner  of  police  should  be  a  fixed  term.  The 
other  was  that  a  patrolman  should  not  have  the  right  of  appeal  to  the 
courts.  That  committee  sat  for  a  period  of  many  months  and  had  before 
it  all  of  the  experts  and  inexperts  on  the  police  situation  in  the  city  of 
New  York  and  elsewhere,  and  at  the  close  of  our  consideration  there  were 
but  two  subjects  on  which  the  committee  was  united;  first,  that  the  term 


548  THE  POLICE  PROBLEM 

of  the  commissioner  should  not  be  fixed,  and,  second,  that  the  right  of 
appeal  to  the  courts  should  be  left  to  the  patrolmen. 

Briefly,  the  reasons  for  holding  that  the  term  of  commissioner  of  police 
should  not  be  fixed  were  two-fold.  In  the  first  place,  while  as  a  matter 
of  principle  the  term  of  such  an  officer  should  be  fixed,  when  two  prin- 
ciples collide,  the  greater  principle  should  have  the  right  of  way.  It  was 
perfectly  apparent  that  the  principle  of  responsibility  of  the  mayor  for 
the  conduct  of  the  government  of  the  city  was  rapidly  becoming  the  lead- 
ing principle  in  municipal  affairs,  at  any  rate  so  far  as  New  York  City 
\vas  concerned;  that  in  no  department  of  the  city 
The  Mayor's  government  could  the  application  of  that  principle  be 

Responsibility  rr.ore  important  than  in  a  police  department,  and  that 
the  citizens  of  the  tity  must  take,  as  Professor  Hatton 
has  well  suggested,  the  position  that  public  opinion  must  be  so  alive  to  the 
police  problem,  so  keen  upon  the  action  of  the  mayor,  that  no  mayor 
would  dare  to  remove  a  police  commissioner  for  purely  partisan  reasons. 

There  is  another  reason,  namely,  that  in  many  elections  there  comes  be- 
fore the  people  of  the  municipality  the  question  of  the  enforcement  of 
three  series  of  statutes:  first,  the  statute  against  gambling;  second,  the 
statute  with  reference  to  the  closing  of  the  saloons  and  the  excise  ques- 
tion in  general,  and  third,  the  enforcement  of  the  laws  against  disorderly 
houses,  and  within  the  memory  of  every  gentleman  present  I  am  well 
assured  that  election  after  election  has  turned  upon  the  attitude  of  the 
police  board  with  reference  to  the  enforcement  of  laws  dealing  with  those 
topics.  Now  when  the  population  of  a  city  has  become  really  aroused  on 
any  one  of  those  topics  there  is  but  one  thing  that  it  wants  to  do.  It 
wants  to  get  at  the  chief  of  police  and  change  him,  and  in  my  judg- 
ment the  people  of  any  city  ought  to  have  the  right  to  get  at  the  chief  of 
police  and  change  him,  and  the  way  to  do  it  is  to  do  it  through  the  mayor. 
For  instance,  as  you  well  know,  we  have  been  having  during  the  last  six 
months  in  the  city  of  New  York  a  very  active,  although  somewhat  quiet, 
discussion  of  that  very  topic,  what  the  relation  of  our  police  should  be 
toward  these  various  resorts.  Sooner  or  later  the  election  of  the  mayor 
of  New  York  is  going  to  depend  upon  the  question  of  the  enforcement 
of  those  statutes  and  the  people  should  be  able  to  say,  "  We  wish  a  mayor 
who  has  a  certain  view  upon  those  subjects." 

To  pass  from  that  topic  to  the  topic  of  the  patrolman.  That  is  a  thor- 
oughly practical  matter.  The  conclusion  that  we  arrived  at  was  this; 
that  on  an  examination  of  the  very  large  proportion  of  the  cases  which 
had  been  brought  up  on  appeal  to  the  courts  by  patrolmen,  as  to  the 
reasons  for  and  the  propriety  of  their  removal,  the  committee  was  well 
satisfied,  that  the  right  of  appeal  was  well  exercised  by  the  patrolmen, 
and  that  the  reinstatement  of  the  patrolmen  by  the  courts  was  only  what 
was  just  and  proper  in  view  of  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  not  on 
technical  grounds,  but  on  actual  broad  grounds  of  fair  dealing  with  the 


HORATIO  N.  POLLOCK 


549 


men.  The  appeal  to  the  courts  has  been  taken  very  freely  by  the  patrol- 
men and  there  have  been  many,  many  cases  where  they  have  not  been 
re-instated,  but  in  our  judgment  the  larger  proportion  of  the  cases  in 
which  they  were  re-instated  were  cases  in  which  the  appeal  was  correctly 
taken. 

MR.  REGINALD  M.  HULL,  Cambridge,  Mass.:  Cambridge  is  facing  a  very 
serious  problem.  It  cannot  trust  its  elective  officials  to  manage  its  police 
department.  Conflict  of  authority  is  constantly  arising.  Within  two 
months  a  Cambridge  patrolman  was  shot  at  by  a  Somerville  patrolman. 
When  that  man  was  tried  in  Somerville  the  witnesses  from  the  Cambridge 
force  were  not  invited  to  be  present.  Action  was  taken  on  the  accounts 
which  were  given  by  the  Somerville  chief  of  police. 

We  believe  that  a  great  deal  more  efficiency  can  be  obtained  through 
a  state-appointed  commission.  We  have  had  a  fine  example  of  that  in 
Boston.  There  is  not  a  Boston  man  here  who  will 
State-appointed  not  agree  with  me  that  the  Boston  service  is  as  good 
Commission  as  any  service  that  we  know  anything  about  and  the 

man  at  the  head  of  it  is  an  ideal  police  commissioner. 
Cambridge  wants  that  same  sort  of  thing.  A  state  commission  could 
prevent  duplication  of  work,  duplication  of  stations,  duplication  of  vari- 
ous systems  of  criminal  identification,  would  increase  tremendously  the 
speed  with  which  criminals  could  be  apprehended,  and  in  every  way 
to  my  mind, — except  as  to  the  question  of  home  rule,  which  I  think  is 
a  dream  in  that  particular, — I  think  would  prove  extremely  valuable. 

Our  system  allows  the  mayor  to  discharge  a  patrolman  only  after  he 
has  been  heard  by  the  board  of  aldermen,  and  we  have  been  unable  to 
get  rid  of  a  drunken  patrolman.  Within  the  last  year  we  have  had 
two  cases  of  drunkenness  brought  before  the  board  of  aldermen.  They 
have  retained  men  for  various  reasons,  sympathy  and  other  things  that 
I  cannot  dwell  on,  and  they  hark  back  to  the  fact  that  the  mayor  let 
a  drunken  policeman  stay  on  the  force  earlier  in  the  year,  and  say, 
"The  mayor  did  that,  why  can't  the  board  do  this?" 

Somerville  is  not  satisfied  with  her  system  and  there  are  a  good  many 
other  towns  around  Boston  that  are  not  satisfied  with  theirs.  A  metro- 
politan commissioner  could  do  a  great  work ;  a  state  commissioner  could 
do  even  a  greater  work. 

DR.  HORATIO  N.  POLLOCK,  Albany:  I  have  been  much  interested  in  what 
Professor  Hatton  has  said  concerning  the  civil  service  aspects  of  the 
police  situation.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  civil  service  program  might  be 
applied  to  the  whole  of  the  police  system,  including  the  commissioner 
and  chief  of  police.  I  believe  that  if  we  could  get  the  right  kind  of  a 
commissioner,  we  would  do  much  towards  solving  the  whole  problem. 
The  men  in  uniform  follow  the  head  of  department.  If  the  sentiment 


550  THE  POLICE  PROBLEM 

of  the  head  of  the  department  is  in  favor  of  decent  law-enforcement, 
the  policemen  catch  the  spirit.  I  believe  that  we  could  by  the  application 
of  the  merit  system  determine  whether  a  man  would  be  a  capable  com- 
missioner of  police  before  he  is  appointed  to  the  office. 

In  regard  to  efficiency  records.  For  seven  years  I  was  senior  examiner 
of  the  New  York  State  Civil  Service  Commission,  and  during  that  time 
the  question  of  promoting  candidates  in  the  various  departments  was 
one  of  the  principal  questions  we  had  to  consider. 
Efficiency  We  tried  to  consider  all  of  the  elements  entering  into 

Records  a  man's  experience  in  determining  his  grade  for  pro- 

motion, and  in  some  cases  we  used  the  efficiency  re- 
cords or  the  grading  given  by  the  head  of  the  department.  We  found 
this  to  be  the  case.  Often  the  head  of  the  department  was  a  new  man; 
the  men  who  were  being  graded  had  served  a  long  time  in  the  depart- 
ment ;  the  head  of  the  department  simply  gave  his  impressions.  He 
looked  over  whatever  records  there  might  be  in  the  office  and  he  re- 
ported anything  that  there  might  be  against  the  man,  but  as  a  rule  his 
report  was  simply  an  impression  of  the  quality  of  the  man.  I  think  in 
the  majority  of  cases  that  impression  was  perfectly  worthless,  as  it  was 
not  founded  upon  sufficient  data.  I  think  a  man's  record  in  the  depart- 
ment ought  to  be  one  element  merely,  and  it  should  not  be  given  great 
weight  in  promotion  examinations. 

It  seems  to  me  that,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  the  examinations  might 
better  be  open  competitive  examinations  rather  than  promotion  examin- 
ations; that  is  examinations  that  would  be  open  to  men  in  the  depart- 
ment and  at  the  same  time  to  men  outside.  If  the  men  in  the  depart- 
ment have  gained  any  efficiency,  have  established  a  record  for  efficiency, 
have  shown  their  ability,  they  ought  to  be  ahead  of  the  men  who  would 
naturally  come  in  from  the  outside.  I  believe  in  the  open  examination 
so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  use  it. 

EDWARD  J.  WARD,  University  of  Wisconsin:  Is  there  not  an  element 
in  this  problem  that  we  are  prone  to  forget  ?  That  is,  the  human  element. 
If  there  is  graft  in  the  system  would  it  not  be  simply  a  change  from 
retail  graft  to  wholesale  graft  to  put  the  control  of  the  police  in  the 
state  instead  of  in  the  hands  of  the  city  government?  Is  there  not  a 
difficulty  in  the  attitude  of  the  citizens  toward  the  police?  The  citizens 
say,  "  You  force  us  to  be  good  if  you  can  ".  And,  again,  in  the  attitude 

of  the  authorities  over  the  police  toward  the  citizens, 
Co-operation  in  saying,  "  We  will  force  you  to  be  good  ?"  Is  it 

Of  Citizens  not  the  great  fact  that  the  citizenship  of  the  city  is 

itself  a  subordinate  part  of  the  police  system,  and 
should  not  the  idea  be  cultivated  that  the  police  are  not  playing  a  game 
against  the  citizens,  are  not  at  war  with  the  citizens,  but  that  they  are 
special  agents  to  do  what  the  citizens  themselves  want  to  see  done? 


AUGUSTUS  RAYMOND  HATTON  55 r 

The  city  of  Milwaukee  has  been  cleaned  up  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
publicity  man  of  the  former  mayor  told  me  that  from  a  sporting  m.an's 
point  of  view  Milwaukee  is  now  off  the  map.  It  has  been  cleaned  up, 
not  because  the  police  have  been  forced  to  make  the  people  obey  the 
laws,  but  because  the  people  have  recognized  their  police  responsibility 
in  co-operating  with  the  police  in  reporting  the  breaking  of  laws.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  effect  there  demonstrates  the  value  of  emphasizing 
the  fact  that  the  police  are  not  hired  to  fight  the  instincts  of  the  people, 
to  prevent  them  from  having  a  good  time.  We  should  emphasize  the  idea 
that  ultimately  the  responsibility  is  not  only  upon  the  police,  the  few 
specialists,  but  is  upon  the  whole  citizenship,  which  is,  ultimately,  the  com- 
plete police  system.  I  simply  ask  whether,  like  the  franchise  question, 
this  question  does  not  come  back  upon  a  cultivated  sense  of  civic  re- 
sponsibility rather  than  upon  a  question  of  shifting  the  machinery  from 
city  to  state  or  back  from  state  to  city. 

PROFESSOR  HATTON:  I  want  to  say  in  reply  to  Mr.  Hull  that  it  seems 
to  me  the  trouble  he  detailed  between  the  Cambridge  and  the  Somerville 
police  forces  is  due  to  a  very  fundamental  defect 
The  Boston  which  is  exemplified  by  the  entire  metropolitan  Boston 

Situation  situation.  I  have  not  very  much  sympathy  for  the 

outlying  municipalities  about  Boston  which  complain 
of  the  bad  government  in  the  city  of  Boston  or  which  complain  of  such 
conflicts  of  jurisdiction  as  have  been  described.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
the  outlying  districts  about  Boston  are  getting  from  Boston  just  as  much 
as  they  deserve,  and  so  long  as  they  insist  upon  staying  out, — and  these 
are  really  the  places  where  the  intelligent  people  who  work  in  Boston 
go  out  to  sleep, — just  so  long  will  they  be  dissatisfied  with  the  conditions 
in  Boston  and  just  so  long  will  there  be  this  conflict  of  jurisdiction.  It 
is  a  manifestly  absurd  situation  to  permit  these  manifold  separate  muni- 
cipalities with  absolutely  no  dividing  line  between  them  to  continue 
to  exist. 

In  regard  to  the  question  as  to  the  relative  merits  of  state  appointed 
and  local  appointed  chiefs  of  police,  after  a  very  careful  investigation 
of  all  of  the  instances  in  the  United  States  of  state  appointed  boards  or 
state  appointed  police  chiefs,  I  reached  the  conclusion  that,  at  the  very 
least,  one  thing  was  shown ;  that  the  state  appointed  chiefs  or  boards 
had  given  better  results  than  the  locally  appointed  boards.  I  think  un- 
questionably what  Mr.  Ihlder  suggested  would  be  true  of  Ohio  and 
Indiana.  Certainly  it  was  found  in  St.  Louis  that  the  state  controlled 
police  force  resulted  in  most  deplorable  conditions.  The  whole  theory 
of  state  appointed  boards  -ests  upon  the  idea,  it  seems  to  me,  that  a 
state  is  necessarily  more  virtuous  than  a  city, — and  it  is  not  necessarily 
more  virtuous  than  a  city.  It  is  more  virtuous  in  certain  lines  than  the 
city,  and  in  certain  other  lines  it  is  not  quite  so  virtuous.  It  is  just  a 
difference  in  point  of  view  or  a  difference  in  the  quality  of  the  virtue. 


552  THE  POLICE  PROBLEM 

Unquestionably  you  have  now  fairly  good  results  from  a  state  ap- 
pointed police  commissioner  in  Boston,  because  the  situation  in  Boston 
is  exceptional.  In  the  first  place  the  state  capitol  of  Massachusetts  is  a 
kind  of  secondary  city  hall, — or  the  primary  city  hall, — for  Boston.  It  is 
all  in  Boston,  where  the  whole  thing  is  under  the  supervision  of  the  city 
of  Boston,  and  the  influences  that  can  be  most  effectively  directed  upon 
the  working  of  state  administration  in  Massachusetts  are  in  Boston. 
Therefore  you  have  had  great  advantages  in  that  respect.  If  in  Ohio, 
for  instance,  we  transferred  the  appointment  of  the  chiefs  of  police  to 
Columbus,  a  hundred  miles  away,  we  would  have  chiefs  of  police  in  our 
cities  appointed  to  fit  the  particular  political  views  of  the  governor  for 
the  time  being,  and  that  is  what  has  resulted  in  other  states. 

As  to  the  relation  between  the  appointment  of  police  commissioners 
and  the  question  of  home  rule,  let  me  state  again  a  view  that  I  have 
previously  stated  to  the  National  Municipal  League, — the  question  of  the 
enforcement  of  law  is  not  a  matter  of  policy.  There  is  no  question  of 
policy  involved  in  it  providing  the  same  jurisdiction  is  making  the  laws. 
The  trouble  that  comes  in  our  police  conditions  is  that  the  states  make 
some  laws  that  are  opposed  in  the  cities.  Those  are  laws  against  gam- 
bling, laws  against  selling  liquor  under  certain  conditions  or  on  certain 
days,  and,  to  a  much  less  extent,  laws  against  the  social  evil.  Your 
cities  on  the  other  hand  make  the  laws  they  wish  enforced,  that  is,  the 
local  ordinances.  If  your  police  force  were  enforcing  only  city  ordin- 
ances, unquestionably  you  could  leave  that  entirely  to  the  locality.  Your 
police  force  in  the  city  can  be  left  practically  free  to  enforce  ordinary 
laws  against  crime.  That  is,  the  people  of  our  cities  do  not  want  murder 
and  arson  and  such  crimes  to  be  committed  without  being  suppressed. 
They  are  just  as  much  interested  in  suppressing  these  as  any  people  out- 
side of  the  city  are  interested  in  it.  It  is  only  upon  those  questions 
where  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the  people  of  the  city 
and  the  people  of  the  state,  that  we  have  any  difficulty  in  this  police  matter. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  solution  of  the  question  is,  to  leave  it  to  the 
cities  to  appoint  their  police  commissioners  or  police  chiefs.  I  would, 
however — and  I  think  this  is  fundamental — place  it  in  the  power  of  the 
governor  to  remove  chiefs  of  police;  not  to  appoint  someone  in  their 
place,  but  to  remove  them  whenever  they  are  failing  to  enforce  laws  that 
have  been  passed  by  the  state  legislature,  and  for  no 
Home  Rule  other  reason.  That  seems  to  me  to  be  fundamental, 

for  we  are  cultivating  in  this  country  a  widespread 
disrespect  for  law  because  laws  made  in  one  place  are  enforced  by 
officials  elected  in  another  place,  and  officials  elected  by  people  who  are 
opponents  of  particular  lines  of  state  policy. 

It  is  not  a  true  principle  of  home  rule,  it  seems  to  me,  that  we  should 
leave  to  localities  the  administration  or  control  of  those  questions  only 
which  affect  them  alone.  That  is  a  starting  point  perhaps.  You  can 


JOHN  MARTIN 

never  lay  down  an  absolute  dividing  line  of  course,  but  the  principle  of 
local  self-government,  if  that  is  what  you  want  to  call  it,  demands  that 
we  leave  just  as  much  of  the  administration  of  all  forms  of  governments, 
whether  it  affects  the  people  of  the  locality  alone,  or  people  of  the  locality 
in  conjunction  with  the  rest  of  the  state,  to  the  people  in  the  locality. 

I  outlined  last  year  a  system  which  I  think  would  work,  and  it  is  not 
pure  theory,  because  it  has  worked  in  certain  localities.  I  would  let  the 
mayor  appoint  the  chief  of  police,  let  the  governor  remove  the  chief  of 
police  if  he  refuses  to  enforce  state  laws,  but  let  him  be  re-appointed 
again  in  the  locality.  I  think  we  need  the  inspection  they  have  in 
England  and  other  countries  in  order  to  standardize  the  work  of  our 
police  departments  so  that  the  police  work  of  one  city  can  be  compared 
with  the  work  accomplished  in  another  city,  and  that  we  should  provide 
that  the  state  government  shall  pay  part  of  the  expense  of  the  police 
force  upon  condition  that  the  standard  of  the  work  of  that  force  is  suffi- 
ciently high.  I  think  that  would  go  a  long  way  toward  getting  efficient 
enforcement  of  state  laws,  because  no  municipality  would  want  to  tax 
itself  for  the  refusal  to  enforce  certain  laws.  If  the  people  of  the  state 
are  so  vitally  interested  in  the  efficient  policing  of  a  city,  as  I  grant  they 
are,  it  would  be  nothing  more  than  fair  that  they  should  by  taxation  pay 
a  portion  of  that  expense. 

Finally  I  think  we  need  a  state  bureau  of  police,  to  which  all  police 
forces  should  be  required  to  report,  so  that  you  can  have  one  central 
bureau  of  information  regarding  police  conditions.  And,  further,  I 
think  we  ought  to  have  small  state  detective  forces  at  the  control  of  the 
governor,  who  could  send  men  to  see  whether  the  statutes  are  being  en- 
forced. I  do  not  think  we  are  going  to  get  in  any  of  our  states  any  such 
thorough-going  system  introduced  immediately,  but  a  long  first  step  would 
be  to  give  the  governor  the  power  of  removing  the  chief  of  police  for 
failure  to  enforce  state  law.  Then  the  next  step  would  be  to  require 
state  inspection.  That  far  we  might  go  now  without  doing  violence  to 
any  of  our  principles  of  home  rule. 

MR.  MAYO  FESLER,  Cleveland,  Ohio:  I  should  like  to  say  in  behalf  of 
the  plan  suggested  by  Professor  Hatton,  that  Governor  Hadley,  of 
Missouri,  whose  life  has  been  made  miserable  by  the  police  situation  in 
two  cities,  and  who  spent  about  half  his  time  chasing  between  Kansas 
City  and  St.  Louis,  fully  agrees  with  the  position  taken  by  Professor 
Hatton  in  his  address  last  year  before  the  National  Municipal  League. 
He  had  some  doubt  about  the  state  inspection  of  the  forces,  but  that  was 
a  matter  of  temporary  difficulty  only. 

MR.  JOHN  MARTIN,  New  York:  Professor  Hatton  said  that  the  argu- 
ment for  the  appointment  of  a  police  commissioner  by  the  state  rests  on 
the  assumption  that  the  state  is  more  virtuous  than  the  city.  I  cannot 


554  THE  POLICE  PROBLEM 

help  thinking  that  his  contention  that  the  governor  should  have  the  power 
of  removal  of  a  police  commissioner  who  neglects  to  enforce  state  laws, 
is  based  upon  a  similar  assumption,  namely,  that  the  up-state  legislators 
are  more  virtuous  or  wiser  than  the  local  legislators,  and  that  anything 
that  they  lay  down  is  necessarily  for  the  highest  morality  and  should 
of  necessity,  whether  the  locality  desires  it  or  not,  be  enforced  in  that 
locality.  Fundamentally  I  think  we  have  to  come  back  to  an  examination 
of  the  basis  upon  which  we  deny  the  cities  the  authority  to  say  for  them- 
selves what  shall  be  the  rule  with  respect  to  these  matters  upon  which 
there  is  such  difference  of  opinion,  gambling  houses,  saloons  and  places 
of  ill  resort.  His  examples  drawn  from  England,  I  think,  do  not  apply 
in  this  country,  for  the  simple  reason  that  in  England  the  imperial  gov- 
ernment is  much  superior  in  power,  in  experience,  in  impartiality,  to  the 
local  governments.  In  America  that  is  not  the  case  with  the  state  gov- 
ernments, at  any  rate  not  so  markedly. 

No  New  Yorker  would  admit  offhand  that  Albany  was  superior  in 
wisdom,  in  virtue,  in  impartiality,  to  New  York  City.  For  example,  in 
England,  subsidies  are  made  by  the  imperial  exchequer  to  local  com- 
munities, and  the  administration  of  the  police  is  based  effectively  on  that 
subsidy.  The  imperial  taxes  are  drawn  from  other  sources  than  the 
localities  to  which  the  subsidies  are  granted.  If  we  had  that  in  New 
York  State  it  would  be  simply  taking  money  out  of  Father  Knicker- 
bocker's pocket  with  one  hand  and  putting  part  of  it  back  in  the  shape 
of  a  subsidy  with  the  other  hand,  and  therefore  the  same  method  would, 
I  think,  not  prove  effective.  In  fact,  I  should  say  that  the  first  step  to 
be  taken  is  not  to  diminish  home  rule  by  empowering  the  governor 
to  remove  a  police  commissioner  who  in  his  opinion  is  not  enforcing  the 
state  laws,  but  to  extend  home  rule  by  limiting  the  pettifogging  inter- 
ference of  the  state  with  the  regulation  of  purely  local  affairs,  such  as 
the  hours  during  which  the  saloons  shall  be  opened  in  the  cities. 

MR.  ANTHONY  PRATT,  Detroit:  We  have  a  rather  peculiar  situation  in 
Detroit.  Two  and  a  half  years'  ago  there  was  a  strong  local  sentiment 
for  the  removal  of  the  police  commissioner.  We  had  not  the  power  to 
remove  the  commissioner  in  the  city,  but  had  to  apply  to  the  governor, 
and  the  governor  refused  to  act.  Many  of  us  felt  at  that  time  that  had 
we  been  able  to  have  the  power  of  removal  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
mayor,  even  the  street  railway  question,  which  had  been  the  paramount 
issue  in  elections  for  years  and  years,  might  have  been  subordinated  at 
that  time  to  the  question  of  the  re-election  of  mayor  on  the  ground  of 
his  action  in  matters  of  police  regulation. 


Commission    Government    Luncheon. 

A  largely  attended  luncheon  to  consider  the  question  of  the  commission 
form  of  municipal  government  was  presided  over  by  Harvey  S.  Chase, 
of  Boston,  a  member  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  League.  In  view 
of  the  fact  that  that  committee  has  in  contemplation  the  publication  at  an 
early  date  of  a  volume  dealing  with  this  question  only  a  general  outline 
of  the  very  interesting  discussion  will  be  given.  Sufficient,  however,  is 
included  to  present  in  concise  form  the  main  arguments  pro  and  con. 

Dr.  Bradford's  paper  on  "A  Comparison  of  Commission  Forms  of 
Government  to  Date"  (see  pages  246-280)  was  made  the  basis  of  discussion. 

DR.  BRADFORD:  Any  form  of  government  which  can  command  one  hun- 
dred American  cities  is  worthy  of  the  most  careful  and  respectful  at- 
tention from  students  of  government.  With  this  idea,  with  the  thought 

that  it  might  be  possible  to  determine  what  the  re- 
Popularity  of  suits  have  been  in  various  cities,  and  what  the  corn- 
Commission  mission  plan  really  is,  it  was  my  privilege  to  visit  a 
Government  considerable  number  of  cities,  Galveston,  Houston,  Des 

Moines,  Cedar  Rapids,  Keokuk,  Burlington,  Hunting- 
ton,  W.  Va.,  and  other  cities,  and  at  the  beginning  I  was  very  doubtful 
as  to  what  the  commission  plan  could  do.  Any  one  who  has  observed 
the  fads  which  come  in  the  fields  of  government  and  politics  as  well  as  in 
other  realms,  naturally  views  with  considerable  hesitation  and  some  doubt 
the  advent  of  a  brand  new  system  of  city  government  which  is  heralded 
as  a  panacea  for  all  municipal  ills,  so  it  was  with  much  skepticism  that  I 
studied  the  charters  of  these  cities,  and  not  until  I  had  visited  personally 
the  cities  I  have  mentioned  did  I  come  to  have  a  proper  conception  of 
what  the  plan  is,  how  it  works  and  how  different  it  is  from  the  present 
aldermanic  plan  under  which  most  of  our  cities  are  operating. 

KNOWLTON  MIXER,  of  Buffalo:  The  impelling  factor  in  the  movement 
for  a  new  charter  has  been  the  widespread  dissatisfaction  with  the  present 
charter.  Our  investigation  has  developed  this  important  fact  that  under 
the  existing  charter  this  city's  financial  interests  are  not  properly  protected. 
No  mayor,  no  comptroller,  no  auditor,  however  honest,  can  under  the 
present  system  prevent  waste  of  the  taxpayer's  money. 

The  movement  for  a  new  charter  was  initiated  in  1908,  by  a  resolution 
adopted  by  the  common  council  of  Buffalo,  and  approved  by  the  mayor, 
submitting  to  the  electorate  of  the  city  a  question  which  in  substance  read : 

"  Shall  the  city  of  Buffalo  ask  the  Legislature  of  the  state  of  New 
York  for  a  new  and  simplified  city  charter,  which  shall  provide  for  the 

(555) 


556  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

largest  possible  amount  of  home  rule;  to  be  submitted  to  the  common 
council  of  the  city,  and  afterwards  to  the  electors  before  taking  effect?" 

Pursuant  to  the  adoption  of  this  resolution  the  Commissioner  of  Elec- 
tions of  Erie  County  placed  the  question  upon  the  ballot  to  be  voted  at 
the  general  election  held  in  November,  1908. 

When  the  actual  vote  on  this  question  was  duly  can- 
The  Buffalo  vassed  it  was  found  that  the  people  of  Buffalo  had 

Commission  voted  affirmatively  on  all  three  of  the  foregoing  ques- 

Movement  tions  by  the  following  vote: 

Affirmative 13,286 

Negative    4346 


Total  vote 17,632 

Considering  that  this  vote  was  an  expression  by  the  people  on  a  prin- 
ciple, the  poll  was  remarkably  large,  being  approximately  25  per  cent  of 
the  total  vote  cast,  and  the  favorable  plurality  of  more  than  three  to  one 
gave  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  desire  of  the  voters  of  Buffalo  for  a 
a  new,  simplified  and  home-rule  charter  as  expressed  therein. 

During  the  campaign  of  1009  there  was  submitted  to  the  electorate  a 
petition  containing  the  following  question  to  be  placed  upon  the  ballot 
in  November : 

"  Shall  the  city  of  Buffalo  ask  the  Legislature  of  the  state  of  New  York 
to  enact  a  charter  for  Buffalo  in  substance  similar  to  the  charter  pro- 
posed by  the  'Referendum  League  of  Erie  County." 

The  second  vote  was  taken  at  a  general  election,  when  forty  or  more 
city  and  county  officers  were  elected.  More  than  the  number  of  names 
required  under  the  Public  Opinion  Ordinance  were  obtained  to  this  peti- 
tion, and  pursuant  thereto  the  Commissioner  of  Elections  placed  the  ques- 
tion upon  the  ballot  and  a  vote  was  duly  taken  in  November,  1909,  re- 
sulting in  an  affirmative  vote  of  the  city  as  follows : 

Voted  "Yes"   8,848 

Voted  "  No  "  2,498 


Total  vote 1 1,346 

ANSLEY  WILCOX  :  Fortunately,  there  are  many  things  upon  which  we  all 

agree,  and  these  can  be  merely  stated  and  passed  away  from  at  once.     All 

.  of  us  present  here  are  undoubtedly  in  favor  of  refor- 

^01  mation  in  the  American  form  of  city  government,  of 

which  Buffalo  has  a  rather  bad  example— not  the  worst, 

but  among  the  worst — calling  for  radical  improvements,  either  by  way  of 

an  entirely  new  charter  or  a  very  decided  simplification  of  our  existing 

charter.     All  of  us   favor  the  highest  degree  of  publicity  in   municipal 

affairs;  all  of  us  favor  the  most  effective  form  of  popular  nomination 


ANSLEY  WILCOX  557 

of  municipal  candidates — direct  nominations,  if  that  is  practicable,  and 
most  of  us  believe  that  it  is  practicable,  at  least  in  cities;  all  of  us  favor 
a  short  ballot  for  cities — few  officers  to  be  elected,  and  such  simple,  safe 
and  sure  electoral  machinery  as  will  enable  the  voters  most  readily  to 
record  their  choice  and  make  it  effective;  all  of  us  favor  the  thorough 
and  effective  application  of  the  merit  system  through  civil  service  laws 
and  rules  of  the  highest  efficacy;  all  of  us  favor  the  simplest  form  of 
city  charter,  which  will  fix  responsibility  directly  upon  those  who  pos- 
sess power;  all  of  us  are  in  favor  of  home  rule  in  the  highest  degree 
that  is  possible,  that  is,  giving  our  cities  the  largest  possible  degree  of 
authority  to  rule  themselves,  even  to  make  their  own  charters,  if  that 
is  desirable,  and  many  of  us  think  that  it  is. 

Then  we  come  to  the  question  whether  a  particular  method  by  which 
it  is  sought  to  accomplish  these  results  is  the  best  one,  either  as  applied 
to  cities  in  general  or  as  applied  to  the  class  of  larger  cities,  of  which 
Buffalo  is  one;  and  that  brings  us  to  the  topic  of  the  day,  the  commission 
form  of  government,  as  applied  to  the  larger  American  cities,  meaning 
cities  of  more  than  200,000  inhabitants,  I  will  say,  to  take  a  fair  dividing 
line. 

The  conspicuous  thing  about  the  history  of  this  movement  in  these  last 
nine  years  since  it  started  after  the  flood  in  Galveston,  in  1901,  has  been 
that  it  has  been  applied  to  a  large  number  of  small  cities,  none  of  which 
I  think,  reaches  100,000  in  population,  except  Memphis.  Memphis  adopted 
it  within  the  last  year  and  has  not  yet  given  it  anything  like  a  trial ;  but 
Des  Moines  and  Kansas  City,  which  had  adopted  it  before,  have  each 
about  85,000  inhabitants,  and  they  were  the  largest  up  to  the  time  when 
Memphis  adopted  it,  if  I  am  rightly  informed. 

Another  fact  to  which  attention  should  be  called  is  that  most  of  these 

cities,  even  as  small  cities,  have  tried  the  plan   for  only  a  short  time. 

The   first   inquiry   in   the   mind   of   every   serious  man   who   wants   to 

decide  this  question  on  its  merits  is  whether  any 
Value  and  Need  real  trial  has  yet  been  given  this  new  plan,  if  it  is  a 
of  Experience  new  plan  —  and  I  do  not  think  it  is  really  new,  — 

whether  it  has  had  a  period  of  trial  which  demon- 
strates its  successful  working.  The  old  saying  that  a  new  broom  sweeps 
clean  is  as  applicable  to  this  as  to  everything  else. 

The  two  radical  defects  in  this  system  are,  first,  that  it  is  not  a  complete 
simplification  of  the  city  government,  it  is  not  a  sufficient  step  in  the 

direction  of  concentrating  authority  and  fixing  re- 
Radical  Defects  sponsibility.  There  are  five  men  to  whom  is  given 

the  executive  authority,  and  among  whom  the  re- 
sponsibility is  divided.  I  object  to  this  division  of  responsibility.  I  ad- 
vocate one  man — absolutely  one.  Then  there  is  no  escaping  from  re- 
sponsibility. We  do  not  need  and  do  not  want  five  generals  for  an  army, 
or  five  masters  for  a  household,  or  five  mayors  for  a  city,  but  only  one. 


558  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

I  am  a  stronger  advocate  of  simplicity,  in  that  respect,  than  the  advo- 
cates of  this  plan  are. 

The  second  fundamental  and  radical  defect  in  the  system  is  that  it  is  a 
combination  of  the  legislative  and  executive  functions  of  government  in 
the  hands  of  one  small  group  of  men.  A  body  of  five  is  too  many  for 
the  chief  executive,  because  that  should  be  only  one.  It  is  too  few  for 
the  legislative  work  in  a  city  of  the  size  of  Buffalo.  Five  may  be  enough 
for  Des  Moines  and  Cedar  Rapids,  but  five  cannot  represent  the  entire 
sentiment  of  Buffalo,  and  give  reasonable  room  for  division  of  opinion 
and  for  debate  and  decision  of  things  by  majorities.  A  majority  of 
three  in  five  is  too  small  for  legislative  action  of  whatever  character, 
in  my  judgment.  Clearly  and  beyond  debate,  this  commission  plan  of 
city  government  involves  a  fusion  of  all  the  executive  and  legislative 
powers  in  the  hands  of  five  men.  It  creates  a  combination  of  five  men, 
who  initiate  everything,  pass  upon  everything,  carry  through  everything 
and  then  certify  everything.  They  make  your  laws,  if  you  are  going  to 
have  municipal  laws ;  they  make  up  your  budget,  they  assess  your  taxes, 
they  spend  your  money,  they  conduct  your  public  works — then  they  cer- 
tify themselves.  They  would  be  a  true  oligarchy,  an  elected  oligarchy. 

It  is  perhaps  possible  that  in  a  smaller  community,  under  100,000  people, 
or  in  a  community  as  large  as  Memphis,  the  legislative  function  may  be 
so  slight  that  it  can  profitably  be  combined  with  executive  functions. 
It  is  possible  that  that  is  so ;  I  do  not  believe  it,  but  I  am  not  going  to 
argue  against  it  to-day,  because  it  is  not  necessary.  But  I  say  to  you, 
that  the  affairs  of  a  city  of  the  size  of  Buffalo,  and  still  more  when  you 
go  beyond  Buffalo  to  the  larger  cities,  like  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Chicago 
and  Xew  York,  take  you  into  a  class  of  questions  which  cannot  safely 
be  entrusted  to  any  five  men,  working  either  in  camera  or  in  public. 
If  they  work  in  public  it  means  that  they  have  newspaper  men  at  their 
elbows,  to  find  out  everything  they  do  or  propose  to  do,  and  be  informed 
in  advance  about  the  differences  of  opinion,  thus  preventing  the  putting 
through  of  negotiations  for  the  benefit  of  the  city.  If  they  work  in 
secret,  they  are  crippled  and  hampered  by  the  fact  that  in  a  body  of  five 
men,  three  can  manipulate  the  control  of  everything  that  comes  up,  and 
the  responsibility  is  divided  so  that  the  people  cannot  say  wko  is  to 
blame  if  things  go  wrong. 

I  stand  for  a  simple  form  of  city  government,  which  I  like  to  call 
the  federal  plan  because  it  closely  follows  the  model  of  our  national 
constitution,  with  a  single  executive  head,  the  mayor,  having  power  to 
appoint  and  remove  all  other  executive  and  administrative  officers,  like 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  but  subject,  of  course,  to  laws  regu- 
lating such  appointments  and  securing  a  thorough  merit  system ;  and 
a  legislative  body  of  moderate  size  and  broad  powers,  but  strictly  legis- 
lative. This  should  be  preferably  about  fifteen  men,  some  of  them 
elected  by  larger  districts  so  as  to  preserve  the  old  and  popular  idea 


LEWIS  STOCKTON  559 

of  local  representation,  say  nine  in  a  city  like  Buffalo,  artd  some  elected 
at  large,— I  suggest  six  in  Buffalo,  so  as  not  to  destroy  the  possibility 
of  a  short  ballot. 

LEWIS  STOCKTON,  of  Buffalo:  Commission  government  has  been  tried 
in  large  cities  in  principle,  and  not  only  in  large  cities  but  in  the  largest 
cities,  in  principle.  The  City  of  New  York  is  practically  governed  by 

a  board  of  estimates  and  apportionments.  Perhaps 
New  York  we  are  differing  merely  because  we  are  not  under- 

an  Example  standing  one  another.  We  are  not  trying  to  center 

responsibility  in  one  man,  possibily,  but  we  are  trying 
to  transfer  responsibility  from  a  number  of  men  and  from  the  different 
departments  of  city  government  into  one  board,  which  considered  col- 
lectively is  a  unit.  The  reason  why  we  cannot  go  as  far  as  Mr.  Wilcox 
in  centering  responsibility  upon  a  single  individual  is  because  of  the 
frailty  of  human  nature.  They  tried  Mr.  Wilcox'  plan  in  remote  San 
Francisco,  and  Brother  Schmidtz  broke  down.  They  tried  it  in  Boston 
under  the  old  plan  and  "  Honey "  Fitz  broke  down.  While  there  is 
nothing  new  under  the  sun,  there  are  combinations  of  things  which  are 
new. 

SIMON  FLEISCHMANN,  of  Buffalo:  So  far  as  this  discussion  has  pro- 
ceeded, pro  and  con,  it  appears  that  my  friend  Mr.  Wilcox  and  I  are  the 
con  up  to  this  point,  and  I  do  not  know  that  we  can  muster  any  further 
recruits.  With  the  profoundest  reverence  for  the  dictum  of  President 
Eliot,  who  said  that  the  running  of  a  municipality  is  nothing  but  business, 
I  am  justified  in  dissenting  from  that  opinion,  because  we  have  the 
equally  great  authority,  possibly  greater  on  this  subject,  of  the  former 
president  of  this  League,  Mr.  Bonaparte,  who  on  Monday  night  told  us, 
in  eloquent  and  impressive  words,  that  if  there  is  anything  that  is  true 
of  municipal  government  it  is,  that  it  is  not  simply  a  matter  of  business 
and  that  it  is  not  analogous  to  the  running  of  a  private  corporation. 
Mr.  Deming  said  so  last  night. 

Now,  practically,  in  regard  to  many  matters,  after  this  system  has  run 
long  enough  in  any  large  community,  you  will  have  the  simple  problem 
presented  of  reaching  a  majority  of  a  small  board  instead  of  a  majority  of 
a  large  board,  and  the  public  itself,  because  corruption  will  not  be  known 
unless  it  manifests  itself  in  some  way  that  can  be  pointed  out.  You  will 
have  the  situation  that  led  Governor  Altgeld,  some  years  ago,  in  this 
city,  in  a  most  eloquent  and  forceful  address,  to  relate  this  incident,  bas- 
ing his  opposition  to  the  enlargement  of  government  by  commission  upon 
it,  in  part.  He  said  there  was  some  new  commission  to  be  created  in 
Chicago,  and  the  president  of  one  of  the  great  systems  of  some  kind 
that  was  to  be  affected  by  it  came  to  him  and  urged  him  not  to  sign  the 
bill.  He  asked  why  not,  and  the  man  stepped  up  closer  and  whispered  to 
him,  "  For  the  Lord's  sake,  Governor,  don't  put  me  in  a  position  where 


560  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

I   will   have  to  buy  up   another  commission."     That  told    a  great   truth 
applicable  to  this  situation. 

WILLIAM  BURNET  WRIGHT,  JR.,  of  Buffalo:  I  do  not  believe,  as  Mr. 
Fleischmann  has  said,  that  you  have  got  to  go  on  the  hypothesis  and  on 
the  belief  and  basis  that  the  American  people  are  innately  rotten.  I 
believe  they  are  honest,  and  I  believe  if  we  put  the  facts  before  them 
they  will  understand  them  and  act  honestly  and  in  accordance  with  good 
judgment,  when  they  understand  the  facts.  He  speaks  of  finding  the 
will  of  the  people.  Isn't  this  government  worth  while  for  us  to  find  out 
what  the  people  want?  This  whole  movement  is  nothing  more  than  a 
world-wide  desire  for  self-government.  You  can  see  it  in  China,  you  can 
see  it  in  Lisbon,  you  can  see  it  right  in  this  country.  The  movement  is 
going  right  on,  and  you  might  just  as  well  try  to  stop  the  running  of 
Niagara  as  to  stop  this  desire  of  the  people  to  govern  themselves.  He 
says  it  will  be  expensive  to  find  out  popular  opinion.  What  are  we  here 
for  as  an  organized  body?  If  it  isn't  worth  while  to  spend  our  time  and 
our  money  to  find  out  what  we  want  to  do,  then  we  have  no  business  to 
have  decent  government. 

Mr.  Wilcox  says  that  he  believes  the  supporters  of  this  commission 
idea  haven't  any  faith  in  it  because  they  want  three  things  attached  to 
it;  the  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall.  Suppose  you  had  a 
platform  that  you  were  going  to  stand  on,  and  that  is  what  a  charter  is, 
it  is  your  constitution  of  your  city, — wouldn't  you  put  good  supports 
under  that  platform  in  order  to  hold  it  up?  If  you  had  a  vest  you 
wanted  to  put  on,  and  it  needed  three  buttons,  wouldn't  you  sew  them 
on  there  to  hold  it  over  your  body? 

MR.  WILCOX  :  I  want  to  point  out,  briefly,  the  fallacy  of  those  who 
argue  in  favor  of  a  control  of  the  affairs  of  a  municipality  by  a  board  of 
five  men,  from  any  supposed  analogy  to  the  management  of  great  busi- 
ness or  railway  corporations.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  great  corporations 
of  the  country  do  not  furnish  any  sort  of  precedent 
The  Corporation  or  parallel  for  this  form  of  government,  but  certain 
Analogy  small  corporations  do.  This  is  an  illustration  of  the 

danger  of  assuming  that  because  a  small  city  may 
thrive  under  this  system,  a  large  city  would  thrive  under  it.  In  the  case 
of  small  corporations,  as  has  been  correctly  said,  the  stockholders  usually 
attend  the  annual  meetings,  they  vote  for  the  directors,  they  take  an  in- 
terest in  the  annual  reports  and  they  actually  do  select  the  directors,  who 
to  some  extent  at  least  direct  the  affairs  of  the  corporation.  In  the  case 
of  the  great  corporations  of  this  country,  especially  railroads,  whose 
affairs  are  extensive  and  whose  stock  is  widely  dispersed,  it  is  fallacy  to 
say  that  there  is  any  popular  election  of  directors.  The  stockholders  of 
the  corporation  are  always  notified  of  annual  elections  and  asked  to  vote. 
But  the  ticket  is  made  up  by  the  old  managers  or  by  a  few  controlling 


HAROLD  J.  ROWLAND  561 

stockholders,  and  there  is  ordinarily  no  chance  for  any  opposition  or  for 
any  other  ticket  to  be  elected.  The  majority  of  the  stockholders  do  not 
vote  willingly.  They  do  not  vote  at  all  except  as  they  are  drummed  up 
and  asked  again  and  again  to  vote,  for  the  sake  of  supporting  the  ad- 
ministration if  nothing  else,  where  there  is  no  contest.  They  send  you 
their  forms  and  beg  you  to  send  a  proxy,  and  give  you  a  stamped  en- 
velope to  mail  it  in,  and  then  send  personally  to  ask  you  for  it,  if  you 
haven't  sent  it  the  other  way,  in  order  to  get  the  votes  out.  Then  all  the 
votes  are  cast  by  the  man  who  holds  these  proxies. 

In  this  way  directors  of  a  big  corporation  are  elected  in  form,  but  they 
are  in  eect  self-perpetuating  bodies,  except  after  some  great  change  in 
the  ownership  of  stocks.  If  there  is  any  one  fact  that  has  been  patent 
in  American  industrial  history  for  the  last  fifty  years,  it  is  that  the  di- 
rectors of  large  corporations  have  not  directed  their  affairs.  A  vast 
amount  of  criticism  has  been  poured  out  upon  the  typical  American 
board  of  directors  for  not  attending  meetings,  for  not  knowing  what  is 
going  on,  for  allowing  the  executive  officers  to  run  the  corporation,  and 
that  criticism  has  been  to  a  large  extent  just.  I  myself  carried  a  case  to 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court  based  upon  that  very  proposition,  in 
the  endeavor  to  hold  the  directors  of  a  national  bank  personally  respon- 
sible for  staying  away  from  the  bank  and  allowing  the  president  to  ruin 
it,  through  their  non-attention  to  their  duties. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  great  corporations  of  this  country  are  con- 
trolled by  a  few  big  stockholders  who  have  major  interests  in  the  stock, 
who  make  the  board  of  directors  by  voting  for  them,  who  control  them 
after  they  are  elected,  vrho  practically  select  the  president  and  the  execu- 
tive committee  that  may  work  with  him.  Such  an  executive  committee, 
where  it  exists,  is  usually  made  up  to  work  in  harmony  with  the  president, 
and  be  under  his  domination.  The  president,  or  some  one  man,  however 
named,  is  usually  the  executive  force  in  control  of  a  great  corporation  in 
this  country.  That  is  absolutely  correct,  as  a  statement  of  practical 
results,  whatever  may  be  the  theory  of  corporate  management.  Surely 
there  is  no  precedent  in  this  practice  of  corporations  that  we  want  to 
follow  in  our  city  governments.  No  inference  in  favor  of  the  com- 
mission plan  of  city  government  can  be  drawn  from  any  supposed  analogy 
to  the  directors  of  a  great  corporation. 

Mr.  Wilcox  also  discussed  the  initiative,  referendum  and  recall,  and 
pointed  out  some  reasons  for  doubting  the  value  of  these  processes,  as 
governmental  agencies  in  large  American  cities;  but  argued  that  if  they 
are  good  things  they  can  as  well  be  applied  to  a  city  government  organ- 
ized on  the  federal  plan,  which  he  supports,  as  to  the  commission  plan, 
which  he  opposes. 

MR.  ROWLAND:  Mr.  Wilcox  says  that  in  large  cities,  among  which  he 
classes  New  York,  we  should  not  have  legislative  work  done  by  an  exe- 


562  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

cutive  body,  and  Mr.  Fleischmann  says  that  legislation  by  an  executive 
body  is  an  impracticable  thing,  that  we  want  to  retain 
New  York's  a  legislative  body  in  a  large  community  and  not  mix 

Board  of  it  up  indiscriminately  with  the  business  end.     In  New 

Estimate  York   we  have  incautiously   done   exactly  that   thing. 

The  most  important  of  the  legislative  functions  in  New 
York  City  are  exercised  not  by  the  board  of  aldermen  but  by  the  board 
of  estimate  and  apportionment,  a  body  composed  of  eight  or  nine,  a  body 
which  is  primarily  an  executive  body,  but  also,  and  equally  importantly, 
a  legislative  body.  Our  board  of  aldermen  is  at  the  present  time  a  vermi- 
form appendix  which  has  absolutely  no  usefulness  and  which  we  could 
cut  out  with  positive  good  to  the  body  politic.  This  experience  of  our 
city,  where  the  conditions  are  at  least  as  complicated  and  as  difficult  as 
those  which  we  find  here,  it  seems  to  me  might  well  be  considered  by 
Buffalo,  even  if  you  do  not  feel  that  the  experience  of  smaller  cities,  even 
to  the  extent  of  a  round  hundred,  of  value  to  you. 

ALFRED  D.  MASON,  of  Memphis:  I  speak  from  a  rather  long  and  bitter 
experience  in  Memphis.  The  Civic  Club  started  the  idea  of  the  com- 
mission form  of  government  in  our  city,  and  we  fought  it  out  before  that 
club  for  eight  months  before  it  ever  went  out  of  the  club  at  all,  but  after 
a  while  it  simmered  down  to  this  point,  that  to  a  considerable  extent  the 
"  interests  "  as  they  are  termed,  were  the  principal  opponents  of  the  com- 
mission plan  of  government.  After  that  discussion  a  charter  was  drawn. 
After  a  great  many  months  of  that  sort  of  thing  we  put  the  matter  up  to 
the  people  to  vote  as  to  what  they  wanted.  When  the  election  time  came 
the  commission  form  won  by  nearly  two  to  one,  so  that  we  sent  to  Nash- 
ville out  of  the  nine  men  who  were  elected  from  Memphis  seven  men  who 
were  pledged  to  vote  for  the  commission  form  of  charter  for  our  city. 
We  have  been  working  under  this  charter  since  January  i.  Our  new 
commissioners,  five  in  number,  were  sworn  into  office  at  8.30  a.  m.  and 
although  it  was  a  holiday,  at  half-past  ten  o'clock  they  were  notified  that 
a  contest  in  the  courts  would  be  instituted,  first,  as  to  the  constitutionality 
of  the  act,  and,  second,  as  to  the  election  of  our  mayor.  The  first  suit, 

as  to  the  constitutionality  of  the  act,  was  decided  by 
The  Experience  our  Supreme  Court,  on  the  fifteenth  of  July,  in  favor 
Of  Memphis  of  the  charter.  The  second  suit  is  still  pending  and 

to-day  I  expect,  in  Memphis,  they  are  counting  the 
votes  in  the  Circuit  Court,  to  decide  whether  E.  H.  Crump  or  J.  J.  Williams 
was  elected  mayor.  In  spite  of  the  contest,  much  has  been  accomplished.  A 
number  of  blood  suckers  who  were  sapping  the  city's  pores  have  been  cut  off. 
The  commissioner  of  public  utilities  went  to  the  city  stable  in  his  part  of 
the  town  on  the  morning  of  January  2  and  gave  orders  that  the  carts 
and  other  things  from  that  stable  should  leave  there  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning  and  not  at  nine  as  they  had  been  doing  for  years;  not  only  so, 


CHARLES  SUMNER 


563 


but  he  told  the  foreman  that  he  wanted  by  the  following  Saturday  a  com- 
plete inventory  of  everything  that  belonged  to  the  city  in  that  department. 
The  mayor  issued  a  similar  order  to  every  department  in  the  city  to  have 
an  inventory  in  hand  by  Saturday  noon,  and  they  did.  We  had  been 
fighting  for  a  union  station  in  Memphis  for  about  fifteen  years.  [Laugh- 
ter.] Our  union  station  is  up  to  the  second  story.  We  had  been  fighting 
for  subways  for  twenty  years,  trying  to  get  the  railroads  to  do  some- 
thing other  than  cross  the  streets  on  grade.  Three  or  four  subways  have 
already  been  built  and  more  have  been  contracted  for.  We  had  been 
trying  for  some  time  to  get  a  contagious  diseases  hospital  in  Memphis. 
It  took  the  commission  just  two  weeks  exactly  to  pass  an  ordinance  for 
the  contagious  diseases  hospital  and  to  appoint  three  men  who  under  the 
the  instruction  of  the  commission  were  to  buy  the  ground  and  get  busy 
with  the  contagious  hospital.  At  the  end  of  another  two  weeks  the 
ground  had  been  bought  and  bids  had  been  advertised  for  competitive 
designs  for  the  plan.  In  just  four  weeks'  time  we  got  it.  As  to  economy 
a  good  many  unnecessary  office  holders  were  dropped,  and  unnecessary 
work  eliminated. 

MR.  PETERS  :  I  merely  wish  to  throw  out  one  suggestion  in  connection 
with  our  experience  in  Kansas  City,  which  I  would  like  the  people  who 
are  studying  the  commission  form  of  government  to  try  to  observe  as 
closely  as  possible.  Under  our  Kansas  City  charter  we  have  tried  to  vest 
all  the  power  possible  in  the  mayor.  The  mayor  appoints  all  of  our 
several  boards,  and  each  of  those  boards  is  under  the  charge  of  a  com- 
mission of  three  citizens.  These  three  citizens  for  the  most  part  serve 
without  compensation.  Some  of  these  citizens  who  serve  on  these  com- 
missions are  men  whose  time  is  worth  probably  fifty  or  a  hundred  dollars 
a  day.  They  serve  on  these  committees  and  are  glad  to  give  the  city  their 
services.  In  these  several  departments  it  happens  then 
Citizen  that  in  each  administration  we  have  fifteen,  twenty  or 

Co-operation  twenty-five  citizens  who  are  working  in  these  depart- 

ments and  are  educated  in  citizenship.  In  this 
experience  we  have  educated  a  very  large  body  of  the  citizenship  and 
we  have  accomplished  effective  government,  perhaps  not  so  well  as 
a  commission  form  proper  would  have  accomplished  it,  but  we  have 
accomplished  the  necessary  and  important  purpose  of  developing  an  ef- 
fective citizenship;  and,  as  all  will  agree,  the  public  sentiment  of  a  com- 
munity, regardless  of  forms  of  government,  is  the  mainstay  of  good 
city  government. 

Ms.  CHARLES  SUMNER:  I  wish  to  endorse  all  that  Mr.  Peters  said  about 
our  present  government,  but  at  the  last  session  of  the  legislature  of 
Missouri  we  tried  to  get  a  constitutional  amendment  which  would  permit 
us  to  have  the  commission  form  of  government,  and  we  have  a  bill  now 


564  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

prepared  to  submit  next  January  which  gives  that  power,  because  the 
people  of  Kansas  City  are,  I  think  very  strongly  in  favor  of  the  com- 
mission form.  The  bicameral  feature  of  our  government,  the  upper 
house  elected  at  large  and  the  lower  house  by  wards,  and  the  mayor 
having  the  veto  power  simply  plays  into  the  hands  of  "  the  interests." 
We  cannot  progress  unless  we  are  so  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  a  thing 
that  we  can  simply  carry  three-quarters  of  the  town. 

I  approach  this  subject  as  a  representative  of  organized  labor.  I  am 
trying  to  be  a  real  democrat,  as  I  understand  the  term.  I  find  there  is 
just  as  much  confusion  in  labor  unions  on  that  point  as  there  is  in 
government.  I  believe  it  is  apparent  to  all  of  us  this  afternoon  that  the 
contest  now  on  is  a  contest  between  autocracy  and  democracy.  I  visited 
Galveston.  The  man  who  said  he  conceived  the  idea  in  Galveston,  said 
that  the  defect  in  the  Galveston  plan  was  that  it  did  not  have  the  initiative, 
the  referendum  and  the  recall,  which  in  Fort  Worth,  where  he  afterward 
went  and  helped  frame  their  charter,  he  saw  to  it  they  did  have.  There 
was  a  great  need  in  Galveston  for  immediate  action  and  they  cut  the 
red  tape,  and  the  people  realized  that  the  government  had  hampered  the 
people  in  doing  what  they  saw  the  need  of  doing,  and  they  accepted  the 
commission  form  of  government.  Inasmuch  as  it  is  practically  an  auto- 
cracy, it  had  to  be  safeguarded  and  protected,  and  immediately  upon  that 
fact  taking  hold  in  other  cities  where  they  appreciated  the  value  of  the 
commission  form  of  government,  the  people,  who  were  considering  the 
idea  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  democracy,  said,  "  We  must  safeguard  it 
by  the  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall,  and  get  the  advantage  of 
concentrated  responsibility  and  directness  of  action,  but  have  it  protected, 
so  that  the  people  shall  be  safeguarded  in  their  guarantees."  [Applause.] 
It  seems  to  me  evident  to  anyone  who  has  visited  the  West  where  those 
cities  are  using  that  system,  that  there  can  be  no  division  of  opinion  as 
to  its  efficacy  and  its  protection. 

MR.  JONES  :  I  come  from  a  city  that  has  not  the  commission  form  of 
government,  but  public  sentiment  is  growing  so  strong  now  that  something 
is  bound  to  happen.  We  do  not  know  whether  it  will  be  the  commission 
form  of  government  or  probably  a  modified  form, — but  whatever  the 
system  is  it  will  contain  the  main,  probably  all  the  essentials  of  the  Des 
Moines  system  of  government. 

I  am  intimately  acquainted  with  the  situation  in  Des  Moines.     I  have 

had  long  confidential  talks  with  members  of  the  commission  at  various 

times.     Two    of   them    are    friends    of   mine;    and   here   is   the   cheerful 

fact  that  may  be  emphasized,  and  which  has  not  been 

Des  Moines  brought    out    hitherto.       Of    the    original    commission 

elected  by  the  people,  three  of  the  five  were  not  men 

whom   any  of  us  here  would  pick   for   positions   of  that  responsibility. 

Seemingly  they  were  not  big  enough  for  the  job.     The  conditions  were 


RALPH  BOWMAN  565 

such  that  you  were  almost  ready  to  prophesy  failure,  and  yet  what  were 
the  results?  They  were  splendid.  They  got  good,  clean  government,  and 
effective  administration,  and  why  did  they  get  it?  Because  there  was 
developed  under  that  system  a  sense  of  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the 
officials,  the  location  of  responsibility  in  specific  officials,  the  development 
of  responsiveness  on  their  part  to  the  people,  and,  on  the  part  of  the  people, 
a  sense  of  responsibility  in  the  government.  What  happened  in  Des 
Moines  following  the  result  of  that  first  election?  Innumerable  civic 
clubs  were  formed  all  over  the  city,  men's  clubs  in  the  churches,  neigh- 
borhood clubs,  ward  clubs,  precinct  clubs,  scores  and  scores  of  them  all 
over  the  city, — for  what?  To  discuss  city  government,  calling  their  offi- 
cials before  them,  educating  themselves  in  citizenship.  Now,  gentlemen, 
there  is  the  real  test  of  a  charter  system,  as  I  see  it.  What  is  the  effect 
of  that  on  the  citizenship?  It  is  to  develop,  as  Mr.  Deming  so  well  said, 
last  night, — it  is  to  preserve  and  develop  the  instincts  of  self-government 
in  the  people. 

DR.  BRADFORD  :  Home  rule  is  an  entirely  different  thing  from  commission 
government.  Home  rule  says,  here  is  a  field  within  which  the  city  shall 

operate.  The  commission  plan  says,  within  this  field 
Home  Rule.  the  single  board  of  five  men  shall  be  supreme.  Then 

again  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  state  government  by 
commissions  is  a  different  thing  from  a  single  board  of  five  in  control 
of  a  city.  The  very  fact  of  expanding  the  number  of  commissions,  mak- 
ing them  numerous,  changes  the  principle  from  a  small  board,  a  single 
group  of  five  men,  which  might  properly  be  called  a  unit.  It  seems  to 
me  that  clear  definition,  as  Mr.  Deming  has  suggested,  is  extremely 
valuable  in  all  of  our  discussion,  and  after  we  have  defined  our  terms, 
then  we  can  make  our  decision. 

MR.  MASON,  of  Memphis:  In  Memphis,  under  this  new  plan,  we  have 
the  lowest  tax  rate  that  we  have  had  in  twenty  years.  We  have  paid 
off  a  lot  of  old  debts  that  hung  over  from  previous  administrations.  We 
have  paved  more  miles  of  streets  than  in  any  previous  years,  and  we  are 
now  getting  after  the  county,  and  telling  it  that  it  must  reduce  its  county 
rate. 

RALPH  BOWMAN,  of  Buffalo:  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the  statement 
which  was  made  in  regard  to  the  vote  taken  on  the  referendum  charter 
question  in  Buffalo.  The  attempt  has  been  made  by  the  politicians  to 
belittle  that  vote.  That  vote  was  in  the  nature  of  a  primary  vote  in  that 
it  asked  the  privilege  of  the  legislature  for  the  people  to  vote  on  a  charter 
of  the  commission  plan.  As  such  it  should  be  considered  as  a  primary 
vote,  and  as  such  it  was  twice  as  large  as  the  primary  vote  of  the  Republi- 
can party;  twice  as  large  as  the  primary  vote  of  the  Democratic  party, 


566  COMMISSION  GOVERNMENT 

and  it  was  larger  in  ten  wards  (41  districts)  than  the  combined  vote  of 
all  the  parties.  It  was  more  than  double  the  vote  taken  on  any  other 
referendum.  It  was  sixteen  per  cent  of  the  total  vote  cast. 

Here  is  a  comparison  I  would  like  to  have  you  note.  In  one  of  the 
assembly  districts  of  New  York  state  there  was  a  tie  vote  on  a  candidate, 
and  a  second  vote  had  to  be  taken.  At  that  second  vote  only  forty-nine 
per  cent  of  the  people  voted  on  the  question,  and  only  twenty-five  per 
cent  of  the  total  voted  for  the  candidate  who  was  elected.  That  candidate 
came  out  this  fall,  and  advertised  that  he  would  be  in  favor  of  a  re- 
ferendum vote  on  the  charter  question  provided  it  carried  with  it  a  clause 
that  at  least  fifty  per  cent  of  the  people  should  pass  upon  it,  a  very  wise 
and  careful  thing  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  good  many  people.  But, 
gentlemen,  by  that  same  course  of  reasoning,  only  twenty- five  per  cent 
of  the  vote  voted  for  him. 

CHAIRMAN  CHASE:  A  telegram  has  just  come  in  from  J.  Horace  Mc- 
Farland,  President  of  the  Civic  Association,  which  has  been  so  closely 
connected  with  us  in  past  years.  He  says : 

"  Only  absence  on  the  firing  line  of  civic  advance  in  the  South  prevents 
attendance  upon  the  convention.  I  send  my  hearty  good  wishes  and 
reiterate  my  settled  belief  that  the  National  Municipal  League  is  largely 
responsible  for  the  acute  interest  in  good  city  government  now  so  widely 
evident." 

MR.  WILCOX:  I  do  not  want  any  of  my  friends  from  abroad,  even  to 
suggest  that  I  am  advocating  a  form  of  government  which  could  possibly 
be  called  autocratic  when  I  propose,  as  I  do,  that  the 
Autocracy  executive  power  of  a  city  government  should  be  con- 

centrated in  its  mayor.  That  is  not  creating  an  auto- 
cracy. It  is  an  absolute  misuse  of  the  term,  which  no  intelligent  man  should 
be  guilty  of  in  that  connection.  The  mayor  of  course  would  be  responsible, 
and  it  is  in  order  to  make  him  responsible,  readily  and  instantly,  that  I 
propose  that  thing,  and  you  could  still  have  your  recall  as  to  the  mayor 
far  more  effective  in  that  connection  than  a  recall  as  to  one  of  five  men, 
because  there  would  be  no  doubt  as  to  whom  you  should  recall  if  you 
wanted  to  recall  anybody.  The  government  of  the  United  States  is  not 
an  autocracy,  and  I  am  proposing  exactly  the  same  scheme  for  the 
municipality. 

As  to  legislation  the  very  fountains  of  my  scheme  are  the  fountains 
of  extreme  home  rule.  You  want  to  enlarge  the  power  of  the  munici- 
palities. Give  the  municipalities  as  far  as  possible  the  power  to  legislate 
for  themselves  within  their  own  borders,  to  make  and 
Legislation  and  unmake  their  own  charters,  to  make  laws  for  the 
Administration  people  within  their  own  borders — they  may  be  called 
ordinances,  but  they  are  really  laws.  That  will  mean 
in  Buffalo  enlarging  the  powers  of  local  legislation  right  alongside  of 


HARVEY  S.  CHASE  567 

this  idea  of  giving  to  a  small  executive  body  the  power  of  legislation. 
Is  that  rational?  Is  it  consistent?  Should  your  legislation  be  done  by 
the  same  men  who  are  executing  those  very  laws,  or  should  you  have  a 
separate  legislative  body?  I  am  not  going  to  argue  it  but  I  submit  it  to 
you  for  consideration.  I  do  not  think  the  notion  of  combining  the  legis- 
lative and  executive  functions  upon  the  plea  that  the  legislative  functions 
are  small  and  inconsiderable  and  therefore  can  safely  be  so  combined,  is 
consistent  with  the  idea  of  enlarging  the  legislative  functions,  with  trust- 
ing your  municipalities  to  legislate  for  themselves. 

PROFESSOR  HATTON  :  I  should  like  to  correct  the  statement  that  the 
union  of  the  legislative  and  executive  power  is  everywhere  unsuccessful. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  you  would  have  a  very  hard  time  convincing  the 
people  of  the  English  cities  or  of  England  generally  of  the  truth  of  that. 
There  is  absolutely  no  division  of  those  powers,  and  that  is  true  of  most 
governments  of  the  world  working  under  the  parliamentary  system.  I 
think  we  ought  not  to  labor  under  these  misconceptions  as  to  what  ex- 
perience has  shown  in  regard  to  these  forms  of  government. 

MR.  FISHER,  of  Rochester:  Our  board  of  education,  some  12  years  ago, 
was  practically  turned  over  to  a  commission.  We  had  twenty  wards  in 
the  city  of  Rochester.  Each  one  of  those  wards  elected  a  member  of 
the  board  of  education,  and  we  had  the  same  kind  of  trouble  there  that 
you  now  have  in  other  cities  where  you  elect  your  ward  representatives. 
That  was  abolished  12  years  ago,  and  the  entire  administration  of  the 
schools  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  five  commissioners  who  have  absolute 
control  over  our  educational  matters.  That  board  spends  a  million 
dollars  of  our  money  and  it  is  so  wisely  done  that  if  you  had  lived  in 
Rochester  before  they  went  into  power  and  came  back  to-day,  you  would 
not  recognize  the  place;  and  there  you  have  the  absolute  combination  of 
administrative  and  legislative  action  by  the  same  board,  and  that  to  the 
best  interests  of  the  people. 

CHAIRMAN  CHASE:  I  think  the  time  has  come  for  us  to  adjourn.  I  am 
going  to  make  one  observation,  that  all  the  matters  which  we  have  had 
before  us  this  afternoon  point  to  the  necessity  of  clear  thinking  among  us 
and  to  have  clear  thinking  we  must  have  accurate  information,  and  to 
have  accurate  information  we  must  have,  as  the  National  Municipal 
League  has  insisted  for  years,  good  accounting  and  full  publicity. 

This  meeting  now  stands  adjourned. 


The  Dinner. 

The  Buffalo  Committee  of  Arrangements  tendered  the  officers  and 
members  of  the  National  Municipal  League  a  dinner  at  the  Ellicott  Club, 
Buffalo,  on  Wednesday,  November  16,  Ansley  Wilcox,  Esq.,  presiding 
as  toast  master.  Mr.  Wilcox,  in  the  course  of  his  happy  opening  intro- 
ductory remarks,  said,  "  This  is  the  hardest-working  crowd  of  men  and 
women  that  I  have  ever  seen.  It  works  all  the  morning,  it  works  all  the 
afternoon — that  is  not  unusual, — but  they  have  a  special  working  session 
at  noon,  which  fills  up  every  minute  between  the  two  day  sessions — and 
they  work  in  the  evening.  That  shows  their  earnestness  and  their  zeal. 
While  it  deprives  us  of  the  opportunity  of  entertaining  them,  it  enables 
them  to  do  the  more  good  to  us  and  to  others  like  us  who  need  in- 
struction." 

Richard  S.  Childs  was  the  first  speaker  and  devoted  his  time  to  a  very 
clear  presentation  of  the  principles  of  the  short  ballot.  He  was  followed 
by  the  Hon.  John  Lord  O'Brian,  United  States  Attorney  for  Western 
New  York,  who  spoke  of  his  legislative  work  and  of  the  need  for  or- 
ganizations like  the  National  Municipal  League  to  suggest  new  standards 
and  supervise  the  work  of  public  officials.  In  concluding  he  said,  "  let 
the  people  understand  what  is  going  on  and  we  need  have  no  fear  of 
democratic  government.  That  man  in  my  judgment  is  the  best  friend  of 
democratic  government  and  of  efficient  democracy  in  our  cities  to-day  who 
joins  in  forcing  men  to  take  the  responsibility  for  their  votes  and  to 
accept  the  responsibility  once  it  has  been  placed  upon  them  by  the  result 
of  the  ballot  cast  on  election  day." 

Elliott  H.  Goodwin,  in  the  course  of  his  address,  pointed  out  that 
the  progressive  movement  now  manifesting  itself  in  so  many  sections  of 
the  country  was  not  the  first  wave  of  democracy  that  had  swept  over  the 
United  States.  In  discussing  some  of  the  measures  advocated  by  present- 
day  progressives,  he  said,  "  I  regard  the  referendum  as  valuable,  but 
clumsy;  the  recall  as  desirable  where  it  is  desired  to  establish  long  terms 
for  municipal  offices,  but  a  recall  only  at  stated  periods;  but  in  the 
initiative  I  am  unable  to  see  anything  of  permanent  value,  anything  in 
keeping  with  our  institutions  as  they  were  founded.  Are  we  going  to 
give  up  that  principle  which  comes  to  us  from  Anglo-Saxon  times,  that 
legislation  which  shall  be  the  result  of  debate,  discussion  and  amendment  ?" 

Horace  E.  Deming,  Esq.,  of  New  York,  discussed  what  he  called  "  the 
commonest  fallacy  in  regard  to  municipal  reform,  namely,  the  statement 
that  '  city  government  is  business,  not  politics ' ".  He  said,  among  other 
striking  things,  "  Do  not  fancy  that  by  calling  municipal  government 

(568) 


THE  DINNER  569 

'  business '  you  are  going  to  drive  politics  out.  There  will  always  be  im- 
portant questions  of  city  policy  about  which  men  will  divide.  That  does 
not  mean  that  it  shall  be  questions  of  national  policy  or  national  politics. 
That  does  not  mean  that  it  shall  be  questions  of  state  policy  or  state 
politics,  but  if  you  can  run  a  city  government  of  any  size  for  more  than 
a  few  months  without  having  some  important  question  of  public  policy  to 
decide,  as  to  which  there  will  be  a  wide  division  of  opinion,  it  won't  be  in 
this  world." 

Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  Esq.,  the  Secretary  of  the  League,  responded 
to  the  toast,  "  The  National  Municipal  League  ",  portraying  the  influences 
and  organizations  represented  in  such  a  meeting  as  it  was  then  holding  in 
Buffalo. 

President  William  Dudley  Foulke,  in  a  speech  of  great  eloquence  and 
power,  spoke  of  the  influence  of  commercialism  in  politics,  and  especially 
in  municipal  politics,  showing  by  a  wealth  of  historical  references  the 
disastrous  results  of  the  influence  of  concentrated  wealth  upon  free 
institutions.1 

The  very  interesting  and  successful  dinner  was  concluded  with  an  ad- 
dress by  Dr.  Andrew  V.  V.  Raymond,  who  closed  his  remarks  with  the 
statement  that  "  every  man  is  under  obligation  to  the  community  in  which 
he  lives,  which  represents  to  him  the  conditions  which  God  has  made  for 
his  life". 

1  Pres.  Foulke  has  requested  the  privilege  of  revising  the  report  of  his 
speech  and  publishing  it  subsequently  as  a  magazine  article. 


National  Municipal  League. 

OFFICERS— 1910-11. 

President — HON.  WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE,  Richmond,  Ind. 
Vice-Presidents— H.  D.  W.  ENGLISH,  341  4th  Ave.,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 

A.  LAWRENCE  LOWELL,  Harvard  University. 

CAMILLUS  G.  KIDDER,  27  William  St.,  New  York. 

GEORGE  MCANENY,  City  Hall,  New  York. 

CHARLES  E.  MERRIAM,  University  of  Chicago. 

CHARLES  RICHARDSON,  1307  Spruce  St.,  Philadelphia. 

THOMAS  N.  STRONG,  Portland,  Oregon. 

Treasurer — GEORGE  BURN  HAM,  JR.,  504  Bailey  Bldg.,  Philadelphia. 
Secretary — CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF,  703  North  American,  Philadelphia. 

EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE. 

PROF.  ALBERT  BUSH  NELL  HART,  Chairman,  19  Craigie  St.,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

CHARLES  W.  ANDREWS,  202  Highland  Ave.,  Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

M.  N.  BAKER,  Montclair,  N.  J. 

WILLIAM  P.  BANCROFT,  Wilmington,  Del. 

ROBERT  S.  BINKERD,  55  West  44th  St.,  New  York. 

CHARLES  J.  BONAPARTE,  216  St.  Paul  St.,  Baltimore,  Md. 

JOHN  A.  BUTLER,  703  Merrill  Bldg.,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

HARVEY  STUART  CHASE,  84  State  St.,  Boston. 

'RICHARD  S.  CHILDS,  383  4th  Ave.,  New  York. 

DWIGHT  F.  DAVIS,  220  Security  Bldg.,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

WALTER  L.  FISHER,  55  Portland  Block,  Chicago,  111. 

FREDERIC  C.  GRATWICK,  814  Ellicott  Sq.,  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 

GEORGE  W.  GUTHRIE,  434  Diamond  St.,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 

CLARENCE  L.  HARPER,  1922  Green  St.,  Philadelphia. 

MERWIN  K.  HART,  Utica,  N.  Y. 

WILLIAM  B.  ROWLAND,  287  Fourth  Ave.,  New  York. 

J.  L.  HUDSON,  Detroit,  Mich. 

CHARLES  H.  INGERSOLL,  South  Orange,  N.  J. 

RAYMOND  V.  INGERSOLL,  261  Broadway,  N.  Y. 

HON.  ERNEST  C.  KONTZ,  Century  Bldg.,  Atlanta,  Ga. 

REV.  CHARLES  N.  LATHROP,  Church  of  the  Advent,  San  Francisco.  Cal. 

MEYER  LISSNER,  Lissner  Bldg.,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

WILLIAM  G.  Law,  30  Broad  St.,  Manhattan,  N.  Y. 

ARTHUR  C.  LUDINGTON,  56  West  loth  St.,  New  York. 

(570) 


NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE  COMMITTEES         571 

OLIVER  MCCLINTOCK.  545  Liberty  Ave.,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 

J.  HORACE  MCFARLAND,  Harrisburg,  Pa. 

KNOWLTON  MIXER,  Prudential  Bldg.,  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 

PROF.  W.  B.  MUNRO,  37  Dana  Chambers,  Cambridge,  Mas*. 

EUGENE  H.  OUTERBRIDGE,  n  Broadway,  New  York. 

ROBERT  TREAT  PAINE,  16  State  St.,  Boston. 

ELLIOTT  HUNT  PENDLETON,  519  Main  St.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

FRANK  J.  SYMMES,  322  Montgomery  St.,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 

DUDLEY  TIBBETS,  33  First  St.,  Troy,  N.  Y. 

A.  LEO  WEIL,  Frick  Bldg.,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 

THOMAS  RAEBURN  WHITE,  West  End  Trust  Bldg.,  Philadelphia. 

ADVISORY  COMMITTEE — 

Hon.  Charles  J.  Bonaparte,  Chairman,  216  St.  Paul  St.,  Baltimore. 

Hon.  James  Phinney  Baxter,  Portland,  Maine. 

Charles  F.  Flagg,  Portland,  Maine. 

Hon.  'Robert  P.  Bass,  Peterborough,  N.  H. 

Laurence  Minot,  18  Tremont  St.,  Boston,  Mass. 

President  H.  A.  Garfield,  Williamstown,  Mass. 

Rear  Admiral  F.  E.  Chadwick,  Newport,  Rhode  Island. 

Frederick  J.  Kingsbury,  Jr.,  445  Humphrey  St.,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

George  Haven  Putnam,  29  West  23rd  St.,  New  York. 

Robert  W.  DeForest,  7  Washington  St.,  New  York. 

Clarence  H.  Kelsey,  146  Broadway,  New  York. 

Hon.  Thomas  M.  Osborne,  Auburn,  N.  Y. 

Frederick  Almy,  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 

Harry  B.  French,  429  Arch  St.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Hon.  Vance  C.  McCormick,  Harrisburg,  Pa. 

Rev.  Adolph  Roeder,  Orange,  N.  J. 

Farnham  Yardley,  West  Orange,  N.  J. 

Randolph  Barton,  Jr.,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Hon.  H.  B.  F.  Macfarland.  Washington,  D.  C. 

Hon.  L.  G.  Powers,  Washington,  D.  C. 

John  Stewart  Bryan,  The  Times  Dispatch,  Richmond,  Va. 

R.  E.  Steed,  Norfolk,  Va. 

R.  B.  Naylor,  Wheeling,  W.  Va. 

A.  B.  Andrews,  Jr.,  Raleigh,  N.  C. 

James  Simons,  Charleston,  S.  C. 

Thomas  F.  Parker,  Greenville,  S.  C. 

G.  A.  Gordon,  Savannah,  Ga. 

John  R.  Schindel,  Carew  Bldg.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

A.  Julius  Freiberg,  Union  Trust  Bldg.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

Hon.  L.  E.  Holden,  The  Plaindealer,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

Prof.  A.  R.  Hatton,  Western  Reserve  University,  Cleveland. 


572         NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE  COMMITTEES 

Augustus  Lynch  Mason,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Prof.  William  A.  Rawles,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Hon.  Morton  D.  Hull,  181  LaSalle  St-,  Chicago,  111. 

Graham  Romeyn  Taylor,  The  Commons,  Chicago,  I1L 

Dr.  John  A.  Fairlie,  Urbana,  111. 

Anthony  Pratt,  Moffatt  Bldg.,  Detroit,  Mich. 

Joseph  McC.  Bell,  Hathaway  Bldg.,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

Ford  H.  McGregor,  Madison,  Wis. 

Stiles  P.  Jones,  X.  Y.  Life  Bldg.,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Irving  B.  Richman,  Muscatine,  Iowa. 

John  J.  Hamilton,  Des  Moines,  la. 

Hon.  Henry  L.  McCune,  Kansas  City. 

James  W.  S.  Peters,  Scarritt  Bldg.,  Kansas  City,  Mo. 

Charles  F.  Harrison,  New  York  Life  Bldg.,  Omaha,  Neb. 

John  D.  Ware,  New  York  Life  Bldg.,  Omaha,  Neb. 

F.  X.  Hartwell,  Louisville,  Ky. 

E.  A.  Lindsey,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

John  B.  Weakley,  Birmingham,  Ala. 

Franklin  L.  Riley,  University  P.  O.,  Miss. 

Dr.  H.  Dickson  Bruns,  Xew  Orleans,  La. 

Hon.  Clifton  R.  Breckinridge,  Ft.  Smith,  Ark. 

Charles  A.  Duchamp,  826  Common  St.,  New  Orleans. 

Hon.  G.  W.  Breckinridge,  San  Antonio,  Tex. 

Dr.  Frank  L.  McVey,  University  of  North  Dakota. 

Dr.  Clyde  A.  Duniway,  University  of  Montana,  Mont. 

Hon.  Ben.  B.  Lindsey,  Juvenile  Court,  Denver,  Colo. 

Dunbar  F.  Carpenter,  Colorado  Springs,  Colo. 

Eugene  A.  Cox,  Lewiston,  Idaho. 

Hon.  Harry  B.  Henderson,  Cheyenne,  Wyo. 

Erastus  Brainerd,  The  Post  Intelligencer,  Seattle,  Wash. 

L.  G.  Monroe,  Chamber  of  Commerce,  Spokane,  Wash. 

Rev.  W.  G.  Eliot,  Jr.,  Portland,  Ore. 

Joseph  N.  Teal,  1016  Spalding  Bldg.,  Portland,  Ore. 

Fairfax  H.  Whelan.  901  Royal  Insurance  Bldg.,  San  Francisco.  Cal. 

Charles  D.  Willard,  Equitable  Bldg,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

COMMITTEE  ox  Cmc  EDUCATION — 

Arthur  W.  Dunn,  Chairman,  1418  Walnut  Street,  Philadelphia. 

Prof.  Charles  A.  Beard,  Columbia  University. 

Miss  Mabel  Hill,  19  Astor  Street,  Lowell,  Mass. 

Dr.  A.  X.  Holcombe,  Harvard  University. 

Prof.  James  J.  Sheppard,  High  School  of  Commerce,  New  York. 

President  E.  E.  Sparks,  State  College,  Pa. 

Prof.  James  A.  Woodburn,  University  of  Indiana. 


NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE  COMMITTEES         573 

COMMITTEE  ON  ELECTORAL  REFORM — 

Horace  E.  Deming,  Chairman,  11  William  St.,  New  York. 

Richard  S.  Childs,  383  4th  Ave.,  New  York. 

Arthur  C.  Ludington,  56  West  loth  St.,  New  York. 

Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  703  North  American  Bldg.,  Philadelphia. 

COMMITTEE  ON  CITY  FINANCES  AND  BUDGETS — 

George  Burnham,  Jr.,  Chairman,  504  Bailey  Bldg.,  Philadelphia. 

Harvey  S.  Chase,  84  State  St.,  Boston. 

Dr.  F.  A.  Cleveland,  White  House,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Horace  E.  Deming,  n  William  St.,  New  York. 

Hon.  L.  G.  Powers,  Census  Bureau,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  703  North  American  Bldg.,  Philadelphia. 

COMMITTEE  ON  MUNICIPAL  REFERENCE  LIBRARIES  AND  ARCHIVES — 

Dr.  Horace  E.  Flack,  Chairman,  City  Hall,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Hon.  Oscar  Leser,  City  Hall,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Dr.  Clarence  B.  Lester,  New  York  State  Library,  Albany,  N.  Y. 
Hon.  Thomas  L.  Montgomery,  State  Library,  Harrisburg,  Pa. 
Miss  Edith  Tobitt,  Public  Library,  Omaha,  Neb. 

COMMITTEE  ON  TAXATION  OF  BENEFITS  CAUSED  BY  THE  GROWTH  OF  CITIES 
AND  EXCESS  CONDEMNATION — 

Lawson  Purdy,  Chairman,  Hall  of  Records,  New  York. 

Prof.  Robert  C.  Brooks,  University  of  Cincinnati,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

Prof.  Charles  J.  Bullock,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Frederick  N.  Judson,  Rialto  Building,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

John  Martin,  Stapleton,  Staten  Island,  N.  Y. 

COMMITTEE  ON  MUNICIPAL  HEALTH  AND  SANITATION — 

M.  N.  Baker,  Chairman,  Board  of  Health,  Montclair,  N.  J. 

Dr.  'Richard  C.  Cabot,  Boston. 

Prof.  Irving  Fisher,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

Homer  Folks,  105  East  22nd  St.,  New  York. 

Graham  Romeyn  Taylor,  54  Adams  St.,  Chicago,  111. 

COMMITTEE  ON  A  PROGRAM  FOR  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  METHODS  OF  MUNI- 
CIPAL ADMINISTRATION.1 

Dr.  William  F.  Willoughby,  Chairman,  Bureau  of  the  Census,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C. 
Dr.  William  H.  Allen,  261  Broadway,  New  York. 

1  See  page  203. 


574         NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE  COMMITTEES 

M.  N.  Baker,  220  Broadway,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Dr.  Jesse  D.   Burks,   Director  Bureau  of   Municipal  Research,   Real 

Estate  Trust  Building,  Philadelphia. 
Allen  T.  Burns,  341  4th  Avenue,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 
Harvey  S.  Chase,  84  State  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 
Dr.  Frederick  A.  Cleveland,  White  House,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Charles  F.  Gettemy,  Bureau  of  Statistics,  Boston,  Mass. 
Dr.  Charles  E.  Merriam,  107  Dearborn  Street,  Chicago,  111. 
Hon.  L.  G.  Powers,  Bureau  of  the  Census,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Dr.  B.  M.  Rastall,  Madison,  Wis. 
Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  703  North  American  Building,  Phila.,  Pa. 

COMMITTEE  ON  MUNICIPAL  FRANCHISES — 

'Robert  Treat  Paine,  Chairman,  16  State  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 

Joseph  P.  Cotton,  Jr.,  32  Liberty  Street,  New  York. 

Dugald  C.  Jackson,  84  State  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 

J.  W.  S.  Peters,  Scarritt  Building,  Kansas  City,  Mo. 

Dr.  Delos  F.  Wilcox,  154  Nassau  Street,  New  York. 

Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  703  North  American  Building,  Phila.,  Pa. 

COMMITTEE  ON  SCHOOL  EXTENSION — 

Edward  J.  Ward,  Chairman,  University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison. 

Miss  Jane  Addams,  Hull  House,  Chicago,  111. 

Allen  T.  Burns,  Pittsburgh  Civic  Commission,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 

Henry  C.  Campbell,  Fed.  of  Civic  Societies,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

John  Collier,  Nat'l  Bd.  of  Censorship,  New  York  City. 

Dr.  Samuel  M.  Crothers,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Prof.  George  M.  Forbes,  Rochester  Bd.  of  Education,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

Mrs.  Mary  V.  Grice,  President  Home  and  School  Association,  3008 

Arch  St.,  Philadelphia. 

Charles  W.  Holman,  Farm  &  Ranch,  Dallas,  Texas. 
Dr.  Woods  Hutchinson,  New  York  City. 

Charles  E.  Knowles,  Social  Center  Association,  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 
Dr.  Henry  M.  Leipziger,  New  York  City. 
E.  D.  Martin,  Dept.  of  Public  Recreation,  Columbus,  Ohio. 
Clarence  A.  Perry,  i,  Madison  Ave.,  New  York  City. 
Livy  S.  Richard,  The  Common,  Boston. 
Dr.  E.  W.  Stitt,  N.  Y.  Bd.  of  Education,  New  York  City. 
Miss  L.  S.  Stearns,  Free  Library  Commission,  Madison,  Wis. 
Rev.  Paul  Moore  Strayer,  Third  Presbyterian  Ch.,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 
Hon.  Brand  Whitlock,  Toledo,  Ohio. 
Prof.  Charles  Zueblin,  8  Fairview  Terrace,  Winchester,  Mass. 


NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE  COMMITTEES         575 

Civic  SECRETARIES'  COMMITTEE — 

Elliot  H.  Goodwin,  Chairman,  79  Wall  St.,  New  York, 
National  Civil  Service  Reform  League. 

Carol  Aronovici,  55  Eddy  St.,   Providence, 
Bureau  Social  Research. 

William  H.  Atherton,  Ph.  D.,  51  Common  St.,  Montreal, 
City  Improvement  League. 

Roger  N.  Baldwin,  Security  Bldg.,  St.  Louis, 
Civic  League. 

Joseph  McC.  Bell,  20  Hathaway  Bldg.,  Milwaukee, 
Voters'  League. 

Mortimer  L.  Berkowitz,  8  Beacon  St.,  Boston, 
United  Improvement  Association. 

Thomas  G.  Boggs,  Baltimore, 

Merchants'  and  Manufacturers'  Association. 

Ralph  Bowman,  1048  Ellicott  Square,  Buffalo, 
Commission  Government  Association. 

Edward  L.  Burchard,  87  E.  Lake  St.,  Chicago, 
School  of  Civics  and  Philanthropy. 

Allen  T.  Burns,  Sherrard  Ewing,  324  Fourth  Ave.,  Pittsburgh, 
Civic  Commission. 

Richard  S.  Childs,  383  Fourth,  Ave.,  New  York, 
Short  Ballot  Organization. 

Tensard  De  Wolfe,   1374  Frick  Annex,  Pittsburgh, 
Voters'  League, 

Mayo  Fesler,  Engineers'  Bldg.,  Cleveland, 
Municipal  Association. 

E.  O.  Gillican,  1508-9  Tennessee  Trust  Bldg.,  Memphis, 
Bureau  of  Municipal  Research. 

George  E.  Hooker,  228  Clark  St.,  Chicago, 
City  Club. 

John  Ihlder,  105  E.  22nd  St.,  New  York, 
National  Housing  Association. 

Stiles  P.  Jones,  New  York  Life  Bldg.,  Minneapolis, 
Voters'  League. 

A.  C.  Pleydell,  29  Broadway,  New  York, 
New  York  Tax  Reform  Association. 


576         NATIONAL  MUNICIPAL  LEAGUE  COMMITTEES 

Anthony  Pratt,  Moff at  Bldg.,  Detroit, 
Municipal  League. 

Horatio  M.  Pollock,  50  State  St.,  Albany, 
Civic  League. 

Melvin  P.  Porter,  15  Day's  Park,  Buffalo, 
Municipal  League. 

George  Herbert  Smith,  Rochester, 
League  of  Civic  Clubs. 

Chas.  A.  Sumner,  Scaritt  Arcade,  Kansas  City,  Mo., 
City  Club. 

C.  Bertrand  Thompson,  6  Beacon  St.,  Boston, 
Boston — 1915. 

Shelby  M.  Singleton,  92  LaSalle  St.,  Chicago, 
Citizens'  Association. 

Fred  Tuke,  104  Court  St.,  Cincinnati, 
Taxpayers'  Association. 

Edward  J.  Ward,  University  Extension  Division,  Madison, 
University  of  Wisconsin. 

Richard  Waterman,  1418  Walnut  St.,  Philadelphia, 
City  Club. 

Addison  L.  Winship,  9-11  Beacon  St.,  Boston, 
City  Club. 

Pierce  C.  Williams,  Pittsburgh, 
Chamber  of  Commerce. 

Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,   North  American  Bldg.,   Philadelphia, 
National  Municipal  League. 


Draft  of  a  Civil  Service   Law   For   Cities. 

PREPARED   BY  ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN, 

Secretary  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League. 

(This  draft  has  been  prepared  in  response  to  a  demand  for  a  law  in  brief 
form  suitable  for  insertion  in  a  city  charter  which  shall  contain  all  pro- 
visions essential  to  the  proper  enforcement  of  the  merit  system.  It  is 
drawn  with  particular  reference  to  the  needs  of  smaller  cities.) 

Section,  i.  The  mayor *  shall  appoint  three  persons  as  civil  service 
commissioners  to  serve  one  for  two  years,  one  for  four  years  and  one  for 
six  years.  Each  alternate  year  thereafter,  the  mayor1  shall  appoint  one 
person  as  the  successor  of  the  member  whose  term  shall  expire,  to  serve 
for  six  years.2  Any  vacancy  shall  be  filled  by  the  mayor  x  for  the  un- 
expired  term.  Not  more  than  two  of  the  members  shall  be  adherents  of 
the  same  political  party  and  no  member  shall  hold  any  other  salaried 
public  office.  The  mayor  s  may  remove  a  commissioner  during  his  term 
of  office  only  upon  stating  in  writing  the  reasons  for  removal  and  al- 
lowing him  an  opportunity  to  be  heard  in  his  own  defence. 

Sec.  2.  The  commission  shall  appoint  a  chief  examiner  at  an  annual 

salary  of  $ *  who  shall  also  act  as  secretary.  This  position  shall  be 

in  the  competitive  class.  The  commission  may  appoint  such  other  sub- 
ordinates as  may,  by  appropriation,  be  provided  for. 

Sec.  3.  The  civil  service  of  the  city  is  hereby  divided  into  the  un- 
classified and  the  classified  service. 

The  unclassified  service  shall  comprise: 

(a)  All  officers  elected  by  the  people. 

(b)  All  heads  of  principal  executive  departments.5 

(c)  One  deputy  and  one  secretary  to  each  principal  executive  officer. 

(d)  Superintendents,   principals   and   teachers   in   the   school   system 

of  the  city.6 

1  Or  "  council "  in  those  commission  cities  in  which  the  appointing  power 
is  lodged  in  the  council. 

2  If  the  term  of  the  mayor  is  one  year,  the  terms  of  the  commissioners 
should  be  three  years,  one  expiring  each  year. 

8  Or,  in  commission  cities  where  the  council  is  the  appointing  power, 
"  the  council  by  unanimous  vote  ". 

4  This  amount  should  be  stated  but  will  vary  according  to  the  size  of 
the  city.     In  all  cases  it  should  be  made  large  enough  to  secure  the  ser- 
vices of  a  competent  and  high-grade  man. 

5  Or,  in  commission  cities  "  all  members  of  executive  boards,"  e.  g., 
the  school  board. 

•Only  where  the  school  system  is  under  the  jurisdiction  of  a  school 
board  distinct  from  the  city  government. 

(577) 


578         DRAFT  OF  A  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  FOR  CITIES 

(e)  All  judges  and  one  secretary  to  each.7 

The  classified  service  shall  include  all  other  positions  now  existing  or 
hereafter  created. 

Sec.  4.  The  commission  shall  prescribe,  amend  and  enforce  rules  for 
the  classified  service,  which  shall  have  the  force  and  effect  of  law,  shall 
keep  minutes  of  its  proceedings  and  records  of  its  examinations  and  shall 
make  investigations  concerning  the  enforcement  and  effect  of  this  chapter 
and  of  the  rules.  It  shall  make  an  annual  report  to  the  mayor.8 

The  rules  shall  provide: 

(1)  For  the  classification  of  all  positions  in  the  classified  service. 

(2)  For  open,  competitive  examinations  to  test  the  relative  fitness  of 

applicants  for  such  positions. 

(3)  For  public  advertisement  of  all  examinations  at  least  ten  days 

in  advance  in  at  least  one  newspaper  of  general  circulation  and 
by  posting  a  notice  in  the  city  hall. 

(4)  For  the  creation  of  eligible  lists  upon  which  shall  be  entered 

the  names  of  successful  candidates  in  the  order  of  their  stand- 
ing in  examination.  Such  lists  shall  remain  in  force  not  longer 
than  two  years. 

(5)  For  the  rejection  of  candidates  or  eligibles  who  fail  to  comply 

with  the  reasonable  requirements  of  the  Commission  in  regard 
to  age,  residence,  sex,  physical  condition  or  who  have  been 
guilty  of  crime  or  of  infamous  or  disgraceful  conduct  or  who 
have  attempted  any  deception  or  fraud  in  connection  with  an 
examination. 

(6)  For   the   appointment   of   the  person 9    standing   highest   on   the 

appropriate  list  to  fill  a  vacancy. 

(7)  For  a  period  of  probation  not  to  exceed  six  months  before  ap- 

pointment or  promotion  is  made  complete,  during  which  period 
a  probationer  may  be  discharged  or  reduced  with  the  consent 
of  the  commission. 

(8)  For  temporary  employment  without  examination  with  the  con- 

sent of  the  commission,  in  cases  of  emergency  and  pending  ap- 
pointment from  an  eligible  list.  But  no  such  temporary  employ- 
ment shall  continue  longer  than  sixty  days  nor  shall  successive 
temporary  employments  be  allowed. 

7  It  is  customary,  but  not  necessary,  to  include  also  in  the  unclassified 
service  employees  of  the  legislative  branch.     Certainly  this  should  not  be 
done  in  commission-governed  cities. 

8  Or  "  council." 

9  Or  "of  one  of  the  three  persons."  The  State  Constitution  in  New  York 
has  been  held  to  require  the  certification  of  more  than  one  name  for  each 
vacancy  and  in  New  York,   Massachusetts,  the  Federal  service  and  fre- 
quently elsewhere  the  rule  for  certifying  three  names  is  in  force.     The 
rule  for  certifying  the  highest  name  only  is  best  suited  to  small  cities 
where  candidates  are  few.     It  is,  however,  the  rule  in  Chicago. 


ELLIOT  H.  GOODWIN  579 

(9)  For  transfer  from  one  position  to  a  similar  position  in  the  same 
class  and  grade  and  for  reinstatement  within  one  year  of  per- 
sons who  without  fault  or  delinquency  on  their  part  are  separ- 
ated from  the  service  or  reduced. 

(jo)  For  promotion  based  on  competitive  examination  and  records 
of  efficiency,  character,  conduct  and  seniority.  Lists  shall  be 
created  and  promotions  made  therefrom  in  the  same  manner  as 
prescribed  for  original  appointment.  An  advancement  in  rank 
or  an  increase  in  salary  beyond  the  limit  fixed  for  the  grade  by 
the  rules  shall  constitute  promotion.  Whenever  practicable 
vacancies  shall  be  filled  by  promotion. 

(n)  For  suspensions  for  not  longer  than  thirty  days  and  for  leaves 
of  absence. 

(12)  For  discharge  or  reduction  in  rank  or  compensation  after  ap- 

pointment or  promotion  is  complete  only  after  the  person  to 
be  discharged  or  reduced  has  been  presented  with  the  reasons 
for  such  discharge  or  reduction,  specifically  stated,  and  has 
been  allowed  a  reasonable  time  to  reply  thereto  in  writing. 
The  reasons  and  the  reply  must  be  filed  as  a  record  with  the 
commission. 

(13)  For   the    appointment   of    unskilled    laborers    in    the    order   of 

priority  of  application  after  such  tests  of  fitness  as  the  com- 
mission may  prescribe. 

(14)  For   the   adoption    and   amendment   of   rules   only   after   public 

notice  and  hearing.  The  commission  shall  adopt  such  other 
rules,  not  inconsistent  with  the  foregoing  provisions  of  this 
section,  as  may  be  necessary  and  proper  for  the  enforce- 
ment of  this  chapter. 

Sec.  5.  In  case  of  a  vacancy  in  a  position  requiring  peculiar  and  ex- 
ceptional qualifications  of  a  scientific,  professional  or  expert  character, 
upon  satisfactory  evidence  that  competition  is  impracticable  and  that  the 
position  can  best  be  filled  by  the  selection  of  some  designated  person  of 
recognized  attainments,  the  commission  may,  after  public  hearing  and  by 
the  affirmative  vote  of  all  three  commissioners,  suspend  competition,  but 
no  such  suspension  shall  be  general  in  its  application  to  such  position  and 
all  such  cases  of  suspension  shall  be  reported,  together  with  the  reason 
therefor,  in  the  annual  reports  of  the  commission. 

Sec.  6.  All  examinations  shall  be  impartial  and  shall  deal  with  the 
duties  and  requirements  of  the  position  to  be  filled.  When  oral  tests  are 
used  a  complete  record  of  questions  and  answers  shall  be  made.  Examin- 
ations shall  be  in  charge  of  the  chief  examiner  except  when  members  of 
the  commission  act  as  examiners.  The  commission  may  call  on  other 
persons  to  draw  up,  conduct,  or  mark  examinations  and  when  such 
persons  are  connected  with  the  city  service  it  shall  be  deemed  a  part  of 
their  official  duty  to  act  as  examiners  without  extra  compensation. 


580         DRAFT  OF  A  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  FOR  CITIES 

Sec.  7.  All  persons  in  the  city  service  holding  positions  in  the  classi- 
fied service  as  established  by  this  chapter  at  the  time  it  takes  effect  shall 
retain  their  positions  until  discharged,  reduced,  promoted  or  transferred 
in  accordance  therewith.  The  commission  shall  maintain  a  civil  list  of 
all  persons  in  the  city  service,  showing  in  connection  with  each  name  the 
position  held,  the  date  and  character  of  every  appointment  and  of  every 
subsequent  change  in  status.  Each  appointing  officer  shall  promptly 
transmit  to  the  commission  all  information  required  for  the  establish- 
ment and  maintenance  of  said  civil  list. 

Sec.  8.  No  treasurer  or  other  public  disbursing  officer  shall  pay  any 
salary  or  compensation  for  service  to  any  person  holding  a  position  in 
the  classified  service  unless  the  payroll  or  account  for  such  salary  or 
compensation  shall  bear  the  certificate  of  the  commission  that  the  persons 
named  therein  have  been  appointed  or  employed  and  are  performing  ser- 
vice in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  this  chapter  and  of  the  rules 
established  thereunder.  Any  taxpayer  of  the  city  may  maintain  an  action 
in  any  civil  court  of  record  to  recover  for  the  city  treasury  any  sums  paid 
contrary  to  the  provisions  of  this  section  from  the  person  or  persons 
authorizing  such  payment  or  to  enjoin  the  commission  from  attaching  its 
certificate  to  a  payroll  or  account  for  services  rendered  in  violation  of 
the  provisions  of  this  chapter  or  of  the  rules  established  thereunder. 

Sec.  9.  In  any  investigation  conducted  by  the  commission  it  shall  have 
the  power  to  subpoena  and  require  the  attendance  of  witnesses  and  the 
production  thereby  of  books  and  papers  pertinent  to  the  investigation  and 
to  administer  oaths  to  such  witnesses. 

Sec.  10.  No  person  in  the  classified  service,  or  seeking  admission 
thereto,  shall  be  appointed,  reduced  or  removed  or  in  any  way  favored  or 
discriminated  against  because  of  his  political  opinions  or  affiliations. 

Sec.  11.  No  officer  or  employee  of  the  city  shall,  directly  or  indirectly, 
solicit  or  receive,  or  be  in  any  manner  concerned  in  soliciting  or  re- 
ceiving, any  assessment,  subscription  or  contribution  for  any  political 
party  or  political  purpose  whatever.  No  person  shall,  orally  or  by  letter, 
solicit,  or  be  in  any  manner  concerned  in  soliciting,  any  assessment,  sub- 
scription or  contribution  for  any  political  party  or  purpose  whatever  from 
any  person  holding  a  position  in  the  classified  service. 

Sec.  12.  No  person  holding  a  position  in  the  classified  service  shall  take 
any  part  in  political  management  or  affairs  or  in  political  campaigns 
further  than  to  cast  his  vote  and  to  express  privately  his  opinions. 

Sec.  13.  Any  person  wilfully  violating  any  of  the  provisions  of  this 
chapter,  or  of  the  rules  established  thereunder  shall  be  guilty  of  a  mis- 
demeanor.10 

10  In  case  the  general  penal  laws  of  the  state  do  not  provide  a  penalty  for 
general  misdemeanors  for  which  no  special  penalty  is  provided,  a  specific 
penalty  should  be  provided  in  this  section. 


INDEX. 


Abbott,  Miss  Grace,  3,  375,  513 
Accounting,  Principle  of,  492 
Accounting,  441,  492 
Accounts,  Statistics  and,  473 
Accuracy,  117 

Achievements,  Summary  of,  25 
Adami,  Dr.  J.  George,  520 
Administration,  Legislation  and,  566 
Administrative  Control,  266 
Advisory  Committee,  571 
Alabama's  Overturn,  97 
Allen,    Dr.    William    H.,    451,    477, 

478,  479,  497,  542 
American  Cities,  Grafter  at  Work 

in,  Harold  J.  Rowland,  190,  497 
American  Citizenship,  Education  of 

Foreigners  in,  Miss  Grace  Abbott, 

375,  573 

Amortization,  183,  450 
Amusements,   Influence  of,  469 
Anti-Saloon    Movement,    Churches 

and,  405 

Appointing  Power,  265 
Arbitration,  135,  188 
Assessment  Methods,  488 
Assessors,  Election  of,  487 
Autocracy,  566 

Baker,  M.  N.,  446,  475,  573 

Balance  Sheets,  Budgets  and,  Har- 
vey S.  Chase,  214  480,  573 

Balances,  Checks  and,  272 

Bankers,   150 

Beardsley  Plan,   160 

Beattie,  Mayor,  488 

Beer  and  Intemperance,  419 

Bibliography,  457 

Board  of  Estimate,  New  York's, 
562 

Bonaparte,  Charles  J.,  Retirement 
of,  490 

Bonaparte,  Charles  J.,  3,  II,  443, 
45i,  490,  57i 

Bonnar,  Dr.  John  D.,  509 

Boston— 1915,  83 

Boston,  43,  54,  81,  107,  340,  347, 
539,  55i 


(580 


Boston  City  Club,  577 
Bowman,    Ralph,   565 
Bradford,  Ernest  S.,  246,  555,  565 
Bramhall,   Prof.  F.  D.,  423,  513 
Brewers  Aroused  by  Local  Option, 

413 

Brewers  Vigilance  Bureau,  421 
Budget  Exhibit,  New  York,  41 
Budgets  and  Balance  Sheets,  42, 

214,  480 

Budgets,  Increase  of,  466 
Buffalo,  86,  471,  485,  556 
Bureau  of  Efficiency,  Chicago's,  43 
Bureau  of  Municipal  Research,  22, 

43,  213 
Burnham,  George  Jr.,  444,  479,  480, 

484,  573 
Business  Men,  Interest  of,  76 

Cabinet,  a  Mayor's,  95 

Cambridge,  65 

Campbell,  Henry  C,  358 

Canadian  Experience,  536 

Candidates,  Endorsement  of,  534 

Canton  Act,  173 

Capital,  188,  215,  450 

Celerity  and  Accuracy,  lit 

Censorship  of  Discussion,  465 

Census  Bureau's  Work,  477 

Census  Plans,  206 

Central  Body,  Leadership  of  a,  522 

Character  Law,  414 

Charters,  34,  308,  311,  315,  435 

Chase.    Harvey    S..    214,    444,    460, 

476,  479,  480,  486,  555,  567 
Checks  and  Balances,  272,  274 
Chelsea's  Recuperation,  84 
Chicago,  43,  55,  77,  9*,  '93,  343,  354 
Chicago   Law    and    Order  League. 

426 
Chicago,  Some  Political  Phases  of 

the  Liquor  Problem  in,  Prof.  F. 

D.  Bramhall,  423,  513 
Chicago's  Bureau  of  Efficiency,  43 
Children.  Work  with,  387 
Childs,    Richard    S.,    340,    534,    542, 

544,   568 


582 


INDEX 


Church,  Social  Centers  and  the,  369 

Churches  and  Anti-Saloon  Move- 
ment, 405 

Cities  and  State  Boards  of  Health 
and  the  Proposed  Federal  De- 
partment of  Health,  446 

Cities,  Correlation  of  Finances  and 
Physical  Statistics  of,  W.  F. 
Willoughby,  203 

Cities  without  Taxes,  14 

Cities,  Unearned  Increment  in, 
John  Martin,  346,  489 

Citizen  Examiners,  53 

Citizens  at  Work,  156 

Citizens,  Co-operation,  550,  563 

Citizens,  Duty  of,  208 

Citizenship,  248 

Civic  Centers,  Social  and,  371 

Civic  Consciousness,  Developing  a, 

393 

Civic  Information,  Need  for,  392 
Civic  Education,  Committee  on,  572 
Civic  Heroism  and  Distinction,  471 
Civic  Literature,  71 
Civic  Secretaries  Committee,  575 
Civic  Secretaries  Conference,  516 
Civic  Use  of  School  Houses,  360 
Civil  Service  Law  in  Cities,  52,  54, 

55,  304,  5.15 

City  Planning,  78 

Cleveland,  64,  90 

Cleveland  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
523 

Cleveland,  Dr.  F.  A.,  481,  499 

Clyde- Webster  Ordinance,  126 

Codd-Huchins  Ordinance,   123 

Coler,  Hon.  Bird  S.,  466 

Collections,  485 

Collier,  John,  365 

Colorado,  306,  317 

Colorado  Springs,  98,  309,  320 

Colorado  State  Federation  of  Wo- 
men's Clubs.  317 

Competency,  Honesty  and,  28 

Commission  Government  in  Cities, 
a  Comparison  of  the  Forms  of, 
Ernest  S.  Bradford,  246,  555 

Commission  Government,  30,  31, 
246,  278,  308,  555 

Commission  Government  Luncheon, 
555 

Commission,  State  Appointed,  549 

Commissions,  Local,  306 

Committees,  570 

Communal  forests,  15 

Competition,  Fallacy  of,   103 

Congestion,    New  York's,  48 


Conroy,  A.  J.,  470 

Conservation      in       Municipalities, 

William  Dudley  Foulke,  12,  443 
Conservation,  Unearned  Increment 

and,  510 
Constitutionality  New  Jersey  Civil 

Service  Law,  58 
Constructive  Policy,  a,  179 
Convention      System,       Substitutes 

for,  337 

Co-operation,   Municipal,  83 
Co-operation  of  Citizens,  550,  563 
Corporation  Analogy,  560 
Correlation  of  Financial  and  Physi- 
cal   Statistics    of    Cities,    W.    F. 

Willoughby,  203,  474 
Corruption,  Rural,  494 
Corrupt  Practices  Act,  333 
Corrupt  Practices  in  Municipalities, 

William  Church  Osborn,  491 
Cotton,  Joseph  P.  Jr.,  451 
Country,  Social  Centers  in  the,  367 
County   Option   Law,    Working   of 

the,  398 
Crothers,  Dr.  Samuel  M.,  356 

Deficiency,  Surplus  or,  216 
Definitions,  191,  385,  482 
DeForest    Robert    W.,    22 
Deming,   Horace  E.,   441,   452,  464, 

490.  507,  533,  568,  573 
Denver,  64  97,  322 
Des  Moines,  94,  311,  564 
Detroit,  51,  76,  92,  120,  139,  554 
Detroit,    Street   Railway   Situation, 

Paul  Leake,  120 
Dignif ying  Work,  378 
Dinner,  568 
Direct  Nominations,  Present  Status 

of,  Louis  M.  Greeley,  328,  534 
Direct  Primaries,  Varieties  of,  533 

Earnings,  Disposition  of,  181 
Education  of  Foreigners  in  Ameri- 
can Citizenship,  375,  573 
Educational    Campaign,    Need    of, 

404 

Educational  Relations,  368 
Edwards,  Rev.  Richard,  369 
Efficiency,   Premium  on,  501 
Efficiency  Records.  56,  291,  550 
Efficiency  Tests,  43,  546 
Election  at  Large:   a  Re-definition 

of  Representation,  255 
Electoral  Methods,  Present,  251 
Elementary     Instruction    Required, 


INDEX 


583 


Elements  of  a  Constructive  Fran- 
chise Policy,  Delos  F.  Wilcox,  170 

Eliot,  Dr.  C.  W.,  30 

Emerson,  Henry  P.,  471 

Eminent  Domain  Act,  151 

Emotional   Patriotism,  4 

Endorsement  of  Candidates  and 
Members,  524 

Enforcement  Legislation,  396,  403 

Ephebic  Oath,  69,  444 

Ernst,  George  O.,  539,  541 

European  Examples,  15 

Evidence,  Need  for,  500 

Examiners,  Citizen,  53 

Excess  Condemnation,  512 

Executive  Committee,  570 

Expense  of  the  Primary,  544 

Experience,  Value  and  Need  of,  557 

Expert  Assistance,  147 

Fairhope,  14 

Fare,  Rates  of,  133,   187 

Federal    Department    of    Health — 

City  and  State  Boards  of  Health 

and  Proposed,  446 
Federation  of  Associations.  520 
Fesler,  Mayo,  451,  464,  490,  521,  553 
Finance,  Membership  and,  523 
Financial  and  Physical  Statistics  of 

Cities,  The  Correlation  of,  W.  F. 

Willoughby,  203 

Financial  Statistics,  50,  204,  267 
Fisher,  Walter  L.,  61 
Flack,  Dr.  Horace  E.,  451,  573 
Fleischmann,    Simon,   559 
Folk,  Joseph  W.,  164 
Folwell,  A.  P.,  203 
Foreign  Experience,  344 
Foreign  Population,  73 
Foreigners,  Education  of,  in  Ameri- 
can    Citizenship,      Miss      Grace 

Abbott,  375,  573 
Foreman,  Milton  J.,  452 
Forests,  Communal,  15 
Forty-two  Years'  Extension,  162 
Foulke,    William    Dudley,    12,    443, 

446,  464,  490,  540,  569,  570 
Franchise    Fight,    Kansas    City,    J. 

W.  S.  Peters,   156 
Franchise    Policy,    Elements    of    a 

Constructive,  170 
Franchise  Questions,  62 
Franchise,   the   Indeterminate,    180 
Franchise  Taxes,  49,  175 
Franchises,  Limited,  175 
Franchises,  Perpetual,  171 
Franchises,    Report    of    Committee 

on,  449 


Freedom  of  Discussion,  528 
Free  Lecture  Centers,  364 
Fuld,  Leonhard  Felix,  281,  545 

Gas  and  Electric  Companies,   Dif- 
ferences between,  153 
Gas        Settlement,        Minneapolis, 

Stiles  P.  Jones,  142 
Gas  Situation,  Minneapolis,  145 
Gaynor,  William  J..  27,  66,  69 
General  Electric  Campaign,   142 
General  Street  Railroad  Law,  173 
German  Cities,  349 
Gettemy,  Charles  F.,  230 
Godard,  George  S.,  452 
Going  Value,  461 
Goler,  Dr.  Geo.  W.,  363 
Goodwin,   Elliot   H.,  304,   515,  522, 

530,  568,  575 

Graft,  65,  191,  193,  195,  499 
Graft  Report,   San  Francisco,  67 
Graft,    Universality  of,   498 
Grafter  at  Work  in  American  Cities, 

Harold  J.  Howland,  190,  497 
Grafter  —  How    to    Overtake  —  by 
Municipal     Accounting,     William 
H.  Allen,  497 
Grand  Junction,  324 
Grand  Rapids,  541 
Greater  New  York  Charter,  34 
Greeley,  Louis  M.,  328,  534,  542 
Groups,  Cementing  of,  518 
Guthrie,  Hon.  George  W.,  200 

Hadley,  Governor,  553 
Hamilton,  John  J.,  31 
Harper,  Clarence  L.,  462,  464,  490, 

515 

Hart,  Prof.  Albert  Bushnell.  570 
Hatton,    Augustus    Raymond,    395, 

512,  514,  545,  551,  567 
Haynes,  Mayor,  143,  155 
Health  and  Sanitation,  446 
Health  Officers,  Schools  as,  363 
Historic  Documents,  214 
Holman,  Charles  W.,  367 
Home  Rule,  39,  437,  552,  565 
Home  Rule  in  Taxation,  47 
Honesty  and  Competency,  28 
Howe,  Dr.  Frederick  C.,  80 
Howland,  Harold  J.,  190,  497,  570 
Howland,  William  B.,  561 
Hughes  Law,  176 
Hull  Morton  Denison,  514 
Hull,  R.  M.,  487,  531,  549 
Human  Life,  Conservation  of,  19 
Hutchison,  Dr.  Woods,  363 


INDEX 


Ignoring  facts,  376 
Ihlder,  John,  516,  541 
Illinois,  60,  67,  423,  .543 
Immigrant  and  Municipal  Politics,  3 
Incidence  of  Taxation,  489 
Increment,  Unearned,  16,  509 
Indebtedness,  51,  235 
Independent  Hall,  an,  469 
Indeterminate  Franchise,  The,  180 
Individual  and  Social  Values,  511 
Instruction,  Inadequacy  of,  380 
Intemperance,  Beer  and,  419 
Interchange  of  Ideas,  440 

Jackson,  Dugald  C,  109,  462 
Jones,  Stiles  P.,  142,  461,  472,  511, 

514,  525,  528,  538,  564 
Judicial  Offices,  330 

Kansas  City,  52,  95,  168,  461,  529 
Kansas  City  City  Club,  168 
Kansas  City  Franchise  Fight,  156 
Kansas  City  Star,  167 
Kansas  Law,  257 

Lack  of  Broad  Program,  405 

Lack  of  Uniformity,  478 

Law   and   Order   League,    Chicago, 

426 
Law     Enforcement     Problem     of 

Local  Option,  403 
Lawrence,  66 
Laws,  Multiplicity  of,  545 
League  is  Unique,  441 
League  of  American  Municipalities, 

40 

Leake,  Paul,  120,  461 
Legislation  and  Administration,  566 
Legislation  Enforcement,  396 
Legislation  Reference  Bureaus,  452 
Legislatures,  Large,  201 
Leser,  Hon.  Oscar,  452 
Lester,  Clarence  B.,  452 
Libraries,  Location  of,  454 
Libraries,  Schools  as,  363 
Library  as  a  Civic  Factor,  459 
Library,  Relation  of — to  Municipal 

Work,  389 
License,  408 
License,  Constitutional  Provision 

Forbidding,  406 
Lindsey,  Ben  B.,  97,  322 
Liquor   Interests,    Present  Attitude 

of,     Toward     No-License     Sec- 
tion, 410 
Liquor  Problem  in   Chicago,   Some 

Political  Phases  of  the,  423,  513 
Liquor  Problems,  74,  513 


Liquor  Situation  in  Ohio,  395,  514 
Liquor    Tax    Law  —  Present    Ohio, 

412 

Literature,   Civic,   71 
Lloyd-George  Budget,  350 
Loans  for  General  Purposes,  237 
Local  Option,  403,  413 
Los  Angeles,  18,  100 
Louisville's  School  Board,  96 
Love  of  Country,  9 
Low,  Seth,  23,  26 
Lynn  Balance  Sheet,  228 

Mandatory  Laws,  Increase  of,  328 

Marsh,  Dr.  Benjamin  C.,  79 

Martin,  E.  S.,  365 

Martin,  John,  346,  489,  553 

Mason,  Alfred  D.,  562 

Massachusetts,  119,  231,  234,  305, 
480 

Massachusetts,  Standardizing  of 
Municipal  Accounts  and  Statis- 
tics in,  Charles  F.  Gettemy,  230 

Mayor,  The,  270,  502,  548 

Mayor's  Cabinet,  95 

Mayor's  Eye,  The,  502 

Membership  and  Finance,  523 

Memphis,  562 

Merit  System,  304,  307 

Merriam,  C.  E.,  328,  452 

Merriam  Commission,  44 

Metz's   (Comptroller)    Offer,  45 

Milwaukee,  92 

Minneapolis,  142,  145,  461,  472,  528, 
538 

Minneapolis  Gas  Settlement,  Stiles 
P.  Jones,  142 

Minnesota,  71 

Mixer,  Knowlton,  555 

Money  Graft,  192 

Montgomery,  Hon.  Thomas  L.,  452 

Montreal  Civic  Improvement 
League,  520 

Moral  Qualifications,  294 

Mosier,  Howard  B.,  467,  508 

Moving  Pictures,  365 

Mueller,  John   F.,  469 

Municipal  Accounting  —  How  to 
Overtake  Grafter  by,  William  H. 
Allen,  497 

Municipal  Accounting,  45,  230,  480, 

497 
Municipal   Accounts   and    Statistics 

in    Massachusetts,    Standardizing 

of,   Charles  F.   Gettemy,  230 
Municipal    Affairs,    Patriotism    in, 

Charles  J.  Bonaparte,  3,  443 


INDEX 


585 


Municipal     Civil      Service     Laws, 

Classification  of,  312 
Municipal   Co-operation,   83 
Municipal  Elections,  New  England, 

85 
Municipal      Idea,      New,      Clinton 

Rogers  Woodruff,  22,  444 
Municipal  Officers,  330 
Municipal  Ownership,   17,   104,   136, 

154 
Municipal  Politics,  Immigrant  and, 

3 

Municipal  Problem,  Liquor  Ques- 
tion and  the,  514 

Municipal  Program,  449 

Municipal  Property,  13 

Municipal  Reference  Libraries,  451 

Municipal  Research,  22,  41,  43, 
213,  502 

Municipal  Service  Institute,  A,  526 

Municipal  Work,  Relation  of 
Library  to,  389 

Municipalities,  Conservatism  in, 
12,  443 

Municipalities,  Corrupt  Practices  in, 
490 

McAneny's   Work — George,  22 

McCarthy,  Dr.  Charles,  452 

McClintock,  Oliver,  487 

McGovern,  George  H.,  463 

National    Municipal   League,    Duty 

of  the,  209 

National   Municipal  Statistics,  475 
Neighborhood   Headquarters,   359 
Net  Indebtedness,  235 
Net  Profits,  Division  of,  186 
Newark  Affair,  400 
New  England  Municipal  Elections, 

85 

New  Jersey,  58,  306 
New  Municipal  Idea,  22,  29,  444 
Newton,  Mass.,  214 
New  York,  41,  48,  51,  85,  194,  348, 

484,  534,  559,  562 

New  York's  Board  of  Estimate,  502 
New  York  Citizens'  Union,  34 
New  York  City  Club,  26,  531 
New  York  Public  Service  Commis- 
sion. 63 

New  Zealand,  344 
Nomination  Reform,  59,  533 
Nominations,  Committee  on,  444 
No-License      Provision      obstructs 

Legislation,  410 
Non-Commercial  Rewards,  5 

Oath,  Ephebic,  69,  444 


O'Brian,  Hon.  John  Lord,  568 
Office,  Term  of,  257 
Officers,  1910-1911,  570 
Officers  of  Police  Department,  285 
Ohio,   Liquor  Situation  in,  Augus- 
tus 'Raymond  Hattpn,  395 
Ohio,  Local  Prohibition  in,  395 
Olmsted,  Frederick  Law,  78,  79 
"  Open  Eye,"  Need  of  the,  498 
Operation    of    Woman's    Suffrage 

and  Its  Local  Effect,  513 
Ordinance,  Terms  of,  129 
Oregon,  eg,  336 
Organization  of  Police  Forces,  281, 

545 

Osborn,  William  Church,  490,  547 
Ownership,  Municipal,  17,  104,  136, 

154 

Paine,  Robert  Treat,  451,  452,  460, 

464,  479,  490,  574 
Partnership  Plan,  A,  161 
Party  Affiliation,  331,  332,  337 
Patriotism,  Emotional,  4 
Patriotism  in  Municipal  Affairs,  3, 

443 

Patrolman,  548 
Pay-roll  Graft,   193 
Peoria  Conference,  57 
Perpetual  Franchise,  171 
Perry,  Clarence  A.,  465,  470 
Peters,  J.  W.  S.,  156,  461,  5$3 
Pettus,  Charles  P.,  461 
Philadelphia,  88,  307 
Physical  Statistics,  Need  for,  204 
Pittsburgh,    66,    89,    199,    3<>7,    487, 

529 

Pittsburgh  Civic  Commission,  529 

Platform,  Socialist,  93 

Pleydell,  A.  C,  463,  484,  486,  506, 
510,  544 

Police  Department,  Officers  of,  285 

Police  Forces,  Organization  of, 
281,  545 

Police  Problem  Luncheon,  545 

Police  Questions,  75,  281,  545 

Policy,  A  Constructive,  179 

Polling  Places,  Schools  as,  362 

Pollock,  Horatio  N.,  549 

Popularity  of  Commission  Govern- 
ment, 555 

Population,  Foreign,  73 

Portland,  Ore.,  347 

Powers,  Dr.  L.  G.,  473 

Practical  Workings  of  Woman 
Suffrage  in  Colorado  Municipali- 
ties, 317 


586 


INDEX 


Pratt,  Anthony,  554 
Preferential  Voting,  535 
Premium  on  Efficiency,  501 
Present  Status  of  Direct  Nomina- 
tions, 328,  534 

Primary,  Expenses  of  the,  335,  544 
Principle  of  Wieldy  Districts,  340, 

534 

Privilege  Graft,  195 
Progressive  Movements,  370 
Property,  Municipal,  13,  349 
Public  and  Private  Business,  474 
Public  Buildings,  Use  of,  358,  525 
Public    Health    Work,    Nature    of, 

447 

Public  Library  as  a  Factor  in  Civic 
Development,  385 

Public  Office  a  Trust,  10 

Public  Policy  Questions,  436 

Public  School  Plant,  353 

Public  Sentiment,  Arousing,  69 

Public  Service  Corporations,  Slid- 
ing Scale  Method  of  Regulating, 
103,  461 

Public  Utilities  Commission,  63,  158 

Purchase  of  Votes,  491 

Purchase  Price,  Capital  Account 
and,  188 

Purpose  of  Local  Civic  Associa- 
tions, 516 

Qualifications  and  Restrictions  of 
Commissioners,  258 

Railway  Settlement,  Cleveland's,  64 

Raleigh,  90 

Ranck,  Samuel  H.,  385,  459,  4^3,  543 

Rates  of  Fare,  133,  187 

Raymond,  Dr.  Andrew  V.,  569 

Reber,  Lewis  J.,  368 

Reconstruction,  Cost  of,  128 

Records,  Efficiency,  56,  291 

Recreation  Centers,  364 

Recruits,   Instruction  of,  296 

Referendum,  Illinois,  60 

Reformer  making  good,  A,  26 

Regulation,  105,  412 

Report  of  Committee  on  Franchises, 
449 

Report  on  City  Finances  and 
Budgets,  481 

Report  School  Extension  Commit- 
tee, Summary  of,  353 

Representation — Election  at  Large, 
255 

Representative    Government,    443 

Resolutions,  457,  464,  514,  515 


Retardation,  387 

Revenue,  Capital  and,  215 

Richard,  Livy  S.,  358 

Richmond,  89 

Richmond's,  (Ind.)  Experience,  540 

Robertson,  William  H.,  439 

Rochester,  467 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  70 

Rose,  A.  P.,  543 

Rural  Corruption,  494 

Saloon  Condition  in  Ohio,  420 
San  Francisco,  38,  65,  67,  100,  196 
Sane  Fourth,  367 
Sanitation,  Health  and,  446 
Scenic  Beauty,  18 
Schedules,  218,  483 
School  Board  Reform,  27 
School  Extension,  464 
School  Extension  Committee,  Sum- 
mary of  Report  of,  353 
Schools  as  Health  Offices,  363 
Schools  as  Libraries,  363 
Schools  as  Polling  Places,  362,  467 
Seattle,  98 

Seidel,  Hon.  Emil,  361 
Self-Government,  527 
Short  Ballot,  31,  62,  251,  339,  522, 

535 

Single  Tax,  14,  512 

Site  Values,  Increase  of,  346 

Sliding  Scale  Method  of  Regulat- 
ing Public  Service  Corporations, 
103,  461 

Small  Board,  The,  249 

Smith,  George  H.,  541 

Social  Center  Denned,  354 

Social  Centers,  367,  369,  371 

Socialist  Platform,  93 

Socialist  Undertakings,  93 

Spence,  F.  S.,  536 

Spiritual  Energy,  Conservation  of, 
20 

Spokane,  99 

Standardizing  of  Municipal  Ac- 
counts and  Statistics  in  Massa- 
chusetts, 230 

State-appointed  Commission,  549 

State  Commission  Laws,  31 

State  Control,  305,  309 

State  Laws,  230,  305 

Statistics,   113,  205 

Statistics  and  Accounts,  473 

Statistics  and  Finances,  Correlation 
of,  474 

Statistics,  Financial,  50 

Steed,  R.  E.,  478 


INDEX 


Stockton,  Lewis,  536,  559 
Storrow,  James  J.,  82 
Street  Railway  Commission,  130 
Street  Railway  Situation  in  Detroit, 

120 

Street  Railroad  Law,  General,  173 
St.  Louis  Civic  League,  524 
St.  Paul  Plan,  Proposed,  35 
Substitutes  for  Convention  System, 

337 

Subway  Increases  Values,  351 
Sumner,  Charles,  168,  525,  529,  563 
Sunday  Law  Enforcement,  546 
Sunday  Laws,  Illinois,  423 
Sunday  Question,  424 
Syracuse,    Progressive,   87 

Tammany  Hall,  191,  197 

Taxation,  Home  Rule  in,  47 

Taxation,  Incidence  of,  489 

Taxes,   Cities  without,   14 

Taxes,  Franchise,  49 

Taxpayers'  Committee,  Philadel- 
phia's, 88 

Telephone  Problem,   no 

Telephone  Rates,  Is  a  Rational 
Basis  Possible  for,  109 

Telephones,  462 

Term  and  Tenure  of  Commissions, 
310 

Term  of  Office,  Ten  Years,  283 

Term  of  Office,  257,  283,  310 

Tests  of  Party  Affiliation,  337 

Time  required  of  Commissioners, 
261 

Town  Notes,  Certification  of,  241 

Trinity  Corporation,  72 

Trust,  PuSlic  Office  a,  10 

Undertakings,   Socialist,  93 
Unearned   Increment,    16,   346,   489, 

509,  5io 
Uniform  Municipal  Accounting,  45, 

232,  478 


587 

United  Societies',  Chicago,  429,  432 
Universality  of  Graft,  498 

Values,  Individual  and  Social,  511 

Vancouver,  47 

Veiller,  Lawrence,  79 

Vicious  Voting,  an  Investment  in, 

507 

Vigilance  Bureau,  Brewers,  421 
Voters,  Party  Affiliation  of,  331 
Votes,   Purchase  of,  491 
Voting  Machine,  The,  504,  508 

Ward,    Edward   J.,    353,    464,    525, 

550,  574 

Waste,  Prevention  of,  453 
West  Virginia's  Code,  37 
Wheeling,  90 
White  Slavery,  73 
Wieldy  Districts,  Principle  of,  340, 

534 
Wilcox,  Ansley,  485,  504,  534  55$, 

560,  566,  568 
Wilcox,  Delos  R,  170,  451,  460,  461, 

486,  543 
Willoughby,   W.   R,   203,  474,   478, 

573 

Wilmington,  89 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  69,  391 
Winship,  Addison  L.,  517 
Winsor,  Miss  Mary,  317,  513 
Woman      Suffrage      in      Colorado 

Municipalities,    Practical    Work- 
ing of,  317,  513 
Women,  Interest  of,  77 
Women  Members,  Work  of,  524 
Woodruff,   Clinton  Rogers,    18,   22, 

444,  464  479,  490,  516,  569 
Woods,  Robert  A.,  370 
Wright,  William  Burnet,  560 
Wrightington,  Edgar  N.,  103,  461 

Zueblin,  Prof.  Charles,  356 


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